Once you have assigned a coordinate system to a drawing, you can use the coordinate tracking tool

to identify any point in the drawing. This tool not only allows you to track coordinates in the current

coordinate system, but also in any coordinate system that you select in the Coordinate Tracker.

This current drawing is a drawing of a sewer map of a city. Zoom in and you can see that there are

sewer lines and sanitary sewer manholes. You need to identify the latitude and longitude of one of the

sanitary sewer manholes so that your field crew can identify it by using their GPS devices in the field.

This drawing currently has no coordinate system set. I can verify this by going to the bottom of the

screen, and in the Status bar, I can see that the coordinate system says <none>. To Assign a

Coordinate system, click the chevron by the word "none" in the Status bar. A pop-up box called "

library" appears. Click the library pop up. This also opens the Coordinate System - Assign dialog box.

We can search for the USA, California State Planes Coordinate Systems NAD 83, US foot, by using

some filters inside this dialog box. Find the coordinate system, then click s to assign this to the

drawing. Close the dialog box.

Now open the Coordinate Tracking tool. On the ribbon, Analyze tab, Geo Tools, click the Coordinate

Track button. This launches the Track Coordinates palette. This palette is currently set to a latitude

and longitude coordinate system using the WGS84 datum. As you move your cursor around on the

screen, you can see the display of coordinates in latitude and longitude.

At the bottom middle of the screen, in the Status bar, you can also see the standard AutoCAD

coordinates. If the Autocad Coordinates are not showing up on your screen in your program go to the

far right of the screen on the bottom in the status bar and look for the button with three lines. Click this

Customization Menu button. At the very top of the Customization Menu, click the Coordinates toggle.

The AutoCAD Coordinates will appear in the Status bar in the middle and a checkbox is placed by the

Coordinates toggle, showing that this toggle is turned on. Since the drawing coordinate system is set

to the California State Plane coordinate system, these AutoCAD coordinates also represent actual

locations on earth in that system. The tracker is able to display a different coordinate system than is

assigned to the drawing.

Click the coordinate system name on the Track Coordinates palette. It displays a drop-down with all
the coordinate systems that are available to assign to this tool. You want to use a standard latitude

and longitude with no datum. Under Categories, select Lat Longs and scroll all the way to the top. In

the Code Description column, double-click the LL coordinate system. This sets the latitude/longitude

with no datum to the Coordinate Tracking tool and not to the drawing. This is the same coordinate

system that is used on the GPS devices in the field that are used to locate objects.
At this point, if you want to communicate to your personnel in the field as to where to find a specific

sanitary sewer manhole, you can hover the cursor over the object in the drawing, and the latitude and

longitude of the sewer manhole is displayed in the palette. You can also digitize lines using the

Coordinate Tracker. Enter the line command, then enter the values here in the palette, then click

Digitize. You can also set some options on the Track Coordinates palette. Click the Options button

and the Coordinate Tracker Options dialog box opens.

Here, you can set this to display Degree, minutes and seconds instead of decimal degrees. Click that

option then click OK to close the dialog box. Back in the Track Coordinates palette, the track locations

are now displayed in DMS. So you can see that the Track Coordinates palette gives you some

flexibility to work in other coordinate systems, regardless of which coordinate system is assigned to

the drawing.