Hello Rachel, Actually shapefiles don't contain any coordinate system or datum information. They just store dumb number coordinates which have no intrinsic context. In the current versions of ArcGIS, a projection file (.prj) is used, with the same name as the shapefile set, to define the settings. You can create one of these from a list of supported system using ArcCatalog. You might like to check if your old data has had this added.
Also, don't forget that the UT does not add a spatial index. If you data is anything more than trivial in size, you will need to build this (again in ArcCatalog) to improve drawing/spatial performance. Regards, Warren Vick Europa Technologies Ltd. http://www.europa-tech.com -----Original Message----- From: GIS Helpdesk [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 23 November 2004 17:58 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: MI-L datum error in universal translator hi all we have a user who has translated a mapinfo tab file into an esri shape using version 4 of the universal translator that comes with mapinfo 7.5. although it has maintained the projection (as you would expect, it reads from the source file) it has garbled the datum, ellipsoid etc 'world placement' settings. has any one else seen this or know what why it happens? im assuming that there is some kind of mappings file in the UT utility that controls the translation of these values, but equally the error could be in the code not picking up the original values to start with. the problem did not occur with an older version of UT apparently, although we are verifying this. all suggestions welcome! thanks rachel --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message number: 14190 --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message number: 14194
