Background and Goals:
The design of this lab was to demonstrate knowledge of geographic and projected coordinate systems. In addition, troubleshooting potential problems when uploading files from geodatabases/project folders that do not have a geographic coordinate system or do not have the same coordinate system as other layers in the folder.
Methods:
To begin this lab I created six separate data frames. Each data frame was to display a different projected coordinate system. I labeled each data frame to the specific projected coordinate system that I wished to display.
The first coordinate system that I was to display was the geographic coordinate system without adding a projection coordinate system. To do so, I imported the country shapefile from the World folder. Along with the country shapefile, I imported the geogrid shapefile that would serve as a reference when comparing the different projection systems. Once imported, I checked the geographic coordinate system for both files by looking in the files properties in the Table of Contents. After confirming the two files where both in the GCS_WGS_1984 geographic coordinate system, I moved on to the next section of the project which entailed projecting the previous shape files into different projected coordinate systems.
The next task I was assigned was to project the country and geogrid shapefiles into projected coordinate systems. I selected individual data frames and imported the two shapes and confirmed they had the same geographic coordinate systems. Once I confirmed the two files had the same geographic coordinate systems, I could then proceed in changing the individual data frames into different projected coordinate systems. To do so, I opened the Data Frame Properties tab for each individual data from and changed the projection to the appropriate projection system under the coordinate system tab. For the North American Lambert Conformal Conic data frame I was asked to import the states.shp and stroads_miv5a.shp shapefiles and then project the data frame into the North_America_Lambert_Conformal_Conic projection coordinate system. Once I confirmed that the two shapefiles had the same geographic coordinate systems GCS_North_American_1983, I could then project the data frame into the correct projection system being the North_America_Lambert_Conformal_Conic projection system by selecting it it under the coordinate system tab in the Data Frame Properties menu.
The next section of the project was to show the ability to add a projected coordinate system to a shapefile that does not have a projected coordinate system. To do this I imported the Central_WI_Cts and the Lower_Chip_strms shape files from the Central Wisconsin folder. Both of these file shared the same geographic coordinate system GCS_North_American_1983. Because the two files had the same geographic coordinate system, I could then project the two the data frame into the NAD_1983_StatePlane_Wisconsin_Central_FIPS_4802_Feet projected coordinate system by using the define projection tool located in the Projection and Transformations tab of the data management tools. I chose this projected coordinate system because the counties contained in the Central_WI_Cts shapefile are located within the Central Wisconsin Zone in the State Plane Coordinate System.
Results:
The following maps were created by using the previous data in the layout view of ArcMap. The different data frames were arranged and labeled according to the projection used in each data frame. Once the layouts were finished the files were exported as jpegs.
Sources:
University of Wisconsin Eau Claire [downloadable file]. URL: https://uwec.courses.wisconsin.edu/d2l/le/content/3572845/viewContent/22681789/View
