arcgis-desktoparcmapcoordinatesxy
I have a shapefile and their X and Y coordinates' values are in Decimal Degrees. I want it to convert it in meters.
I also tried to use Calculate Geometry tool. But as you might see it from below screenshot, I am only getting a single unit, i.e., Decimal Degrees under the 'Units' drop down.
The easiest way is to go to the TOC table of contents...
right click the data frame (usually named layers).
Select properties. and the coordinate system tab.
then find the gcs system you would like to have as the final output
set the "document " to that by OK'ing out of the dialogs.
Then when you right click on the layer you want re-projected and select >Data
export data.
You get the export dialog.
Select the "same as data frame" option..
Give it a location and you are done.
You could try to Project to this geographic coordinate system.
Coordinate System>Geographic Coordinate System>North America>NAD 27.prj
GCS_North_American_1927
Angular Unit: Degree (0.017453292519943295) Prime Meridian: Greenwich (0.000000000000000000) Datum: D_North_American_1927 Spheroid: Clarke_1866 Semimajor Axis: 6378206.400000000400000000 Semiminor Axis: 6356583.799998980900000000 Inverse Flattening: 294.978698200000000000
Best Answer
ArcGIS is sensibly not allowing you to do this, because if it did, you would get coordinates that represented the distance in meters from 0° longitude 0° latitude along an angular pathway.
Coordinates represent location with respect to a specific coordinate reference system (CRS). You have coordinates measured in decimal degrees in an angular (geographic) coordinate system, and are asking for a result which only makes sense in a planar (projected) coordinate system. By using the Calculate Geometry tool and looking for the option to output the result in meters, you are asking to have those coordinates converted from decimal degrees to meters without changing the coordinate system. If ArcGIS allowed you to do that and you attempted to use those numbers to calculate distances or areas, the results would be nonsense, or worse than nonsense because they would look like real measurements, but be wrong.
I assume you want your coordinates in meters because you want to display a sensible scale bar or calculate distances or areas in meters. If that is the case, then what you actually want to do is project your coordinates to a suitable planar coordinate system. You can do this using the Project tool in ArcToolbox, or using a variety of standalone tools (such as
ogr2ogr) or other GIS software. What constitutes a suitable projection really depends upon your purposes, region of the globe, and extent of coverage.