Latest Contributions by AdrianWelsh

I am not positive but I would imagine that this would require developing a custom application in order to do this. The out-of-the-box mentality of the pop-up boxes kind of has a mind of its own (as you have probably noticed). Having something more customized based on a particular attribute would require digging into the coding of this and making a custom application. ... View more

That is true - it isn't too hard to create one if you know the WKID. For the projects that I am working on, each prj will have to be a custom made projection file with different values for the parameters (such as false easting, false northing, etc). So, unfortunately, this method will not work for me. Thanks though! ... View more

I agree with both of you. It would be nice to not have to create a custom .prj file each time (and I'd be curious to check out your book, Margaret Maher​), but I have seen what Darren is mentioning on how surveyors prefer to adjust the origin, etc. And yes, we have circled back around! ... View more

I had to go the same route as Kyle. I deleted my bookmarks and recreated them in order to have them ordered in the way that I wanted. It's a major pain but I do not know a work around for that. ... View more

Hi Debra, I do not work for a county office but one of the best things you can do is to sell your 'product' by just showing off what GIS can do. Flashy maps always wow decision-makers like county officials. But, also you can show the power of GIS by showing an app you created or a process you made to look up information quickly (or show a way to generate mailers by doing a buffer search around a property, obtaining the addresses, and spitting out mailing labels, etc). There is an older ArcUser article on on Esri's site that shares the value of GIS to a county office: Illustrating the Value of GIS You can also search different county GIS departments to see what they are doing (some have some good descriptions that you can craft your write-up from). I just did a quick search and found this on Rutherford County in North Carolina (GIS Department) but there are countless other places you can look. Hope this helps! Cheers, Adrian ... View more

Cheating! Oh well, you win. I agree though. This worked. (I even double checked it with arcpy.SpatialReference.exportToString() and it checked out correctly). Thanks for your help, Darren Wiens​ and Dan Patterson​! ... View more

It seems that Darren is right that there is a mistake in the properties. All the read/write options are really read only. In any case, I have conceded to just using the projection string that Dan pointed out and have successfully recreated my own string based on some variables. But, I still am stuck with making the string file stick! import arcpy #User defined variables (to be actually defined later) #Project name related PIN = 12345 ProjName = "New_Project" #Projection related ProjectionName = "Lambert_Conformal_Conic" FalseEasting = 640811.6365 FalseNorthing = -436753.4539 CentralMeridian = -111.5 StandardParallel1 = 40.65 StandardParallel2 = 39 ScaleFactor = 1.000240774 LatOfOrigin = 38.3333 LinearUnit = "Foot_US" MetersPerFoot = 0.3048006096 #Geographic Coordinate System GeoCS = '"GCS_NAD_1983_2011",DATUM["D_NAD_1983_2011",SPHEROID["GRS_1980",6378137.0,298.257222101]],PRIMEM["Greenwich",0.0],UNIT["egree",0.0174532925199433]' #The string for the projection with user inputted variables projString = ('PROJCS["' + str(PIN) + '_' + ProjName +             '",GEOGCS[' + GeoCS +             '],PROJECTION["' + ProjectionName +             '"],PARAMETER["False_Easting",' + str(FalseEasting) +             '],PARAMETER["False_Northing",' + str(FalseNorthing) +             '],PARAMETER["Central_Meridian",' + str(CentralMeridian) +             '],PARAMETER["Standard_Parallel_1",' + str(StandardParallel1) +             '],PARAMETER["Standard_Parallel_2",' + str(StandardParallel2) +             '],PARAMETER["Scale_Factor",' + str(ScaleFactor) +             '],PARAMETER["Latitude_Of_Origin",' + str(LatOfOrigin) +             '],UNIT["' + LinearUnit + '",' + str(MetersPerFoot) + ']]') outputPrj = r"C:\Temp\TempPlaceHolder.prj" spaRef = arcpy.SpatialReference() spaRef.createFromFile(outputPrj) spaRef.loadFromString(projString) print spaRef.exportToString() #edited to fix code... From looking at the print out, the string looks as it is intended. But, how do I make it stick? When I look at the actual .prj file, it still has the old projection info. I think I am only changing the "object" in Python but I want to save changes to the .prj file.... ... View more

Dan, I understand what you are saying about how this can go wrong quickly. I just need to input values into my .prj file from a specified user input based on the survey of the CAD drawing. These are known values from the surveyor so they are more than likely correct and will fit within the bounds of the projection. When looking at the SpatialReference class library, I see that most of the properties are read and write. But, why is it that I cannot write to change certain values like "name" or "falseEasting" or other ones that are indicated as read/write? Are these really not read/write but read only? Is the only way to change properties to go into the "set" properties towards the bottom of that page (like setDomain and such)? Thanks again. ... View more

Dan, I liked the nod to Dolly the clone. I get what you are saying about all the rip rap of the former shapefile and, you're right, the *.prj file is important with CAD files (why can't we all just get along and all use GIS??). The naming isn't really my concern; I just want to be able to get into the SpatialReference class of the .prj file that I created and change the values of certain properties (like false Easting, etc) based on user input. When I try to change these kind of values with the sad code snippet I placed above, the values do not change. How do I change these values and make them stick? ... View more

Dan, I was worried about that which is why I'm hesitant to just use the long string. I have a feeling that it will be more problematic than beneficial. However, I guess I do not understand how to modify all of the SpatialReference elements within Python. I like using the copy method to make a new (or a copy of a) projection file. But how do you go in to change the elements? For instance, if I wanted to change the name of the projection (which is a read/write property), how do I do that? (Sorry for being so inept in Python!) When I write it this way, this is what I get >>> import arcpy >>> sr = arcpy.SpatialReference(r"C:\Users\AWelsh\Documents\ArcGIS\TempPlaceHolder.prj") >>> print sr.name TempPlaceHolder >>> sr.name = "TempPrj" >>> print sr.name TempPlaceHolder >>> I know I am missing something simple but I am not sure what it is. ... View more

Darren, I like where this is headed! I took Dan's advice and copied the car into a re-model of the car, so I could have a .prj file that I could manipulate. I took your code snippet and as long as I use the right values, this seems to work! However, this feels like cheating. Is it easy to screw stuff up when doing it this way? Or should I just double check each time to make sure it was all entered correctly? Is this the best way to modify/create a .prj file with how I am going through the process? Thanks guys! ... View more

Dan, this is how the process is for now. Each project that we do in CAD, a new coordinate system is created - a local one. Once that project is complete, we want to convert the CAD to GIS. In doing this, we open a blank ArcMap, create the projection file (which inherently assigns the blank ArcMap project to that projection), then load the CAD data to verify it is in the right place. From looking at the link that you sent, that text string looks exactly like the parameters that I would want to put in (with using user-inputted variables). What I am really looking for is a Python script that will create this .prj file so that I can use it for the CAD drawing and then eventually I will export the drawing into a GDB or something similar. Do you know how to utilize the Python script for the SpatialReference class in order to create this .prj file and then throw in the inputs from that CAD text from your link? Thanks so much for your assistance! ... View more

Dan, thanks for the help. I had looked at the SpatialReference class site. I looked at the second link and saw where it had information on creating a spatial reference. However, this ends up showing how to create a feature class with a spatial reference. Is there another Pyhon command that would create just the .prj file? That is essentially what I am initially trying to do. Thanks! ... View more

When you say multiple projects, are you meaning multiple instances of separate ArcMap programs running at the same time?  What version of ArcGIS are you running and what is your operating system?  What happens when you have ArcMap running and then go to Start --> ArcGIS --> ArcMap on your computer? ... View more