Getting started

What is a Coordinate System?

A coordinate system defines the location of a point on a planar or spherical surface. Without a
concise definition of the coordinate system used to represent a point, it is difficult to change to a
new coordinate system. Changing coordinate systems is required when integrating data from
different sources into a common coordinate system.

A geographic coordinate system is a threedimensional reference system that locates points on
the Earths surface. The unit of measure is usually decimal degrees. A point has two coordinate
values: latitude and longitude. Latitude and longitude measure angles.

Latitude is defined as the angle formed by the intersection of a line perpendicular to the Earths
surface at a point and the plane of the Equator. Points north of the Equator have positive latitude
values, while points south have negative values. Latitude values range from -90 to +90 degrees.
Lines of latitude are also called parallels because a particular value of latitude forms a circle
parallel to the Equator.

A meridian, or line of longitude, is formed by a plane that passes through the point and the
North and South poles. The longitude value is defined by the angle between that plane and a
reference plane. The reference plane is known as the prime meridian. The most common prime
meridian passes through Greenwich, United Kingdom. Other examples of prime meridians in use
pass through Paris and Bogot. Longitude values range from -180 to +180 degrees.

The geographic coordinate system

Even though geographic coordinates are angular units, ArcSDE stores and treats them as if they
are planar. In this case, longitude values are considered the x-coordinate, while latitude values
are the y-coordinate.

A geographic coordinate system has the following components:

Angular units: The unit of measure on the spherical reference system.
Spheroid: The reference spheroid for the coordinate transformation.
Datum: Defines the relationship of the reference spheroid to the Earths surface.
Prime meridian: The longitude origin of the spherical reference system.

A projected coordinate system is a two-dimensional planar surface. However, the Earths surface
is three-dimensional. Transforming three-dimensional space onto a two-dimensional surface is
called projection. Projection formulas are mathematical expressions that convert data from a
geographical location (latitude and longitude) on a sphere or spheroid to a corresponding
location (x and y) on a flat, twodimensional surface.

The projected coordinate system uses two axes: the x-axis, representing east-west, and the y-
axis, representing north-south. They intersect at the origin, (0,0). Locations are defined relative
to the origin, using the notation (x,y), where x refers to the distance along the horizontal axis,
and y refers to the distance along the vertical axis.



The projected or planar coordinate system locates points relative to the point of origin (0,0) and
the x- and y-axes. Points below the x-axis or to the left of the y-axis have negative values.

A projected coordinate system inherits the components of a geographic coordinate system and
also has:

Projection: The mathematical transformation used to convert from geographic coordinates to
planar (projected) coordinates.
Parameters: Parameters used in the transformation. These parameters are specific to the
projection.
Units: Linear measurement for coordinates on the plane.

The Projection Engine defines and transforms coordinate systems for the Spatial Database
Engine. The Projection Engine supports predefined and application-defined coordinate systems.
Predefined coordinate systems are accessed with integer codes and are listed in the pef.h file in
the include directory under the ArcSDE home directory. You can create your own coordinate
system by using the Projection Engine API.

The central object in the Projection Engine is the coordinate system (PE_COORDSYS). A
PE_COORDSYS contains the pieces necessary to define the coordinate system.

A coordinate system is created by defining the components. Once defined, a handle is returned
that can be used to reference the PE_COORDSYS object. You can create a persistent definition of
a PE_COORDSYS object by storing a string definition of the object. The Projection Engine can
take this string definition, and create a PE_COORDSYS from it. The following example is the
string representation of the California State Plane Zone #1 which is a projected coordinate
system.

PROJCS["NAD_1983_California_I",GEOGCS["GCS_North_American_1983",
DATUM["D_North_American_1983",SPHEROID["GRS_1980",6378137,298.257222101]],
PRIMEM["Greenwich",0],UNIT["Degree",0.0174532925199433]],
PROJECTION["Lambert_Conformal_Conic"],PARAMETER["False_Easting",2000000],
PARAMETER["False_Northing",500000],PARAMETER["Central_Meridian",122],
PARAMETER["Standard_Parallel_1",40],PARAMETER["Standard_Parallel_2",
41.66666666666666],PARAMETER["Latitude_Of_Origin",39.33333333333334],
UNIT["Meter",1]]

The following example is a string representing a geographic coordinate system based on the
WGS 1984 datum.

GEOGCS["GCS_WGS_1984",DATUM["D_WGS_1984",SPHEROID["WGS_1984",6378137,
298.257223563]],PRIMEM["Greenwich",0],UNIT["Degree",0.0174532925199433]]

The coordinate system for a layer is stored in the LAYERS table as a text string that may be as
long as 1024 characters.
Back