Mapping and GIS Solutions Community

Hi,

This will be a dumb question for most I am sure, but could someone please point me in the right direction of where the ESRI projection files need to be placed in order for them to be found when exporting an ESRI Shapefile from Pathfinder Office?  I have a folder containing 75 ESRI Projection files for New Zealand.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Regards,
Mark Peters

------------------------------
Mark Peters
------------------------------

Hi Mark

There's no such thing as a dumb question.

• Short answer is that the folder and files can live anywhere as long as you can browse to the folder and access *.prj files you need to associate with the export
• If ESRI ArcGIS is installed on your machine however, then PFO should search for the directory ArcGIS uses to store all the *.prj files automatically when you hit the browse option. This based on the registry entry ArcGIS uses for the default *.prj storage location. The PFO export wizard, should then store the location for future use 

You can export without any associated *.prj, you'll just have leave the field empty and navigate through the warnings Pathfinder Office gives about exporting without a reference file.
In reality all PFO is doing is taking the *.prj file and renaming it to match the shapefile name

The HELP files within PFO usually provide detailed information for the section you call them from so I'd always recommend taking a look there too.




------------------------------
Tom Harrison
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-23-2022 19:15
From: Mark Peters
Subject: Pathfinder Office - ESRI projection files?

Hi,

This will be a dumb question for most I am sure, but could someone please point me in the right direction of where the ESRI projection files need to be placed in order for them to be found when exporting an ESRI Shapefile from Pathfinder Office?  I have a folder containing 75 ESRI Projection files for New Zealand.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Regards,
Mark Peters

------------------------------
Mark Peters
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 3/24/2022 8:00:00 AM
From: Tom Harrison
Subject: RE: Pathfinder Office - ESRI projection files?

Hi Mark

There's no such thing as a dumb question.

• Short answer is that the folder and files can live anywhere as long as you can browse to the folder and access *.prj files you need to associate with the export
• If ESRI ArcGIS is installed on your machine however, then PFO should search for the directory ArcGIS uses to store all the *.prj files automatically when you hit the browse option. This based on the registry entry ArcGIS uses for the default *.prj storage location. The PFO export wizard, should then store the location for future use 

You can export without any associated *.prj, you'll just have leave the field empty and navigate through the warnings Pathfinder Office gives about exporting without a reference file.
In reality all PFO is doing is taking the *.prj file and renaming it to match the shapefile name

The HELP files within PFO usually provide detailed information for the section you call them from so I'd always recommend taking a look there too.




------------------------------
Tom Harrison
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-23-2022 19:15
From: Mark Peters
Subject: Pathfinder Office - ESRI projection files?

Hi,

This will be a dumb question for most I am sure, but could someone please point me in the right direction of where the ESRI projection files need to be placed in order for them to be found when exporting an ESRI Shapefile from Pathfinder Office?  I have a folder containing 75 ESRI Projection files for New Zealand.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Regards,
Mark Peters

------------------------------
Mark Peters
------------------------------

Joel,

Love the slide deck! It's an oldie but a goodie! It has a good amount of detail too.

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Zach Edwards
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-24-2022 09:04
From: Joel Cusick
Subject: Pathfinder Office - ESRI projection files?

I hope this attachment helps.

slides 48, 49 drill down to your question.  "Where does ESRI store PRJ's. 

C:\Users<login name>\AppData\Roaming\ESRI\Desktop10.X\ ArcMap\Coordinate Systems\

Youll need to expose hidden files (a nasty default setting across all Windows platform in Windows Explorer) is to hide files/folders on your computer.  First thing I do when I get a new computer is set View properties.

Good Luck.

BTW, this is one of my favorite presentations in our 3 day class.  Hope you get the meaning of my title slide.   More GIS folks get run over with this "WGS84 - NAD83" issue than anything else, and frankly, no one handles this better than Pathfinder Office.  I weep for all other users using Field Maps, Collector....

Joel Cusick

GIS Specialist

Region 11 - Alaska Regional Office

240 W. Fifth Ave.

Anchorage, AK 99501-2327

cell:907 280-9724  wk:907 644-3549 

Help Desk: akro_gis_helpdesk@nps.gov

AK GPS Rental and Training Calendar

Original Message:
Sent: 3/24/2022 8:00:00 AM
From: Tom Harrison
Subject: RE: Pathfinder Office - ESRI projection files?

Hi Mark

There's no such thing as a dumb question.

• Short answer is that the folder and files can live anywhere as long as you can browse to the folder and access *.prj files you need to associate with the export
• If ESRI ArcGIS is installed on your machine however, then PFO should search for the directory ArcGIS uses to store all the *.prj files automatically when you hit the browse option. This based on the registry entry ArcGIS uses for the default *.prj storage location. The PFO export wizard, should then store the location for future use 

You can export without any associated *.prj, you'll just have leave the field empty and navigate through the warnings Pathfinder Office gives about exporting without a reference file.
In reality all PFO is doing is taking the *.prj file and renaming it to match the shapefile name

The HELP files within PFO usually provide detailed information for the section you call them from so I'd always recommend taking a look there too.




------------------------------
Tom Harrison

Original Message:
Sent: 03-23-2022 19:15
From: Mark Peters
Subject: Pathfinder Office - ESRI projection files?

Hi,

This will be a dumb question for most I am sure, but could someone please point me in the right direction of where the ESRI projection files need to be placed in order for them to be found when exporting an ESRI Shapefile from Pathfinder Office?  I have a folder containing 75 ESRI Projection files for New Zealand.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Regards,
Mark Peters

------------------------------
Mark Peters
------------------------------

Mark,

This is definitely not a Dumb question. I wanted to share the following two sites for pulling down .PRJs (or other file formats). I used to use http://www.spatialreference.org but I feel like it's gone downhill a bit. This is the one that I prefer: http://epsg.io/
It tends to have more coordinate systems available and seem to be more reliable. I have seem some weird user-defined systems that folks have uploaded to spatialreference.org that are NOT accurate.

------------------------------
Zach Edwards
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-23-2022 19:15
From: Mark Peters
Subject: Pathfinder Office - ESRI projection files?

Hi,

This will be a dumb question for most I am sure, but could someone please point me in the right direction of where the ESRI projection files need to be placed in order for them to be found when exporting an ESRI Shapefile from Pathfinder Office?  I have a folder containing 75 ESRI Projection files for New Zealand.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Regards,
Mark Peters

------------------------------
Mark Peters
------------------------------

Thanks @Joel Cusick and @Zach Edwards for some great resources around this topic​​ <thumbs up emoji - If this platform supported such things!>

------------------------------
Tom Harrison
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-27-2022 12:57
From: Zach Edwards
Subject: Pathfinder Office - ESRI projection files?

Mark,

This is definitely not a Dumb question. I wanted to share the following two sites for pulling down .PRJs (or other file formats). I used to use http://www.spatialreference.org but I feel like it's gone downhill a bit. This is the one that I prefer: http://epsg.io/
It tends to have more coordinate systems available and seem to be more reliable. I have seem some weird user-defined systems that folks have uploaded to spatialreference.org that are NOT accurate.

------------------------------
Zach Edwards

Original Message:
Sent: 03-23-2022 19:15
From: Mark Peters
Subject: Pathfinder Office - ESRI projection files?

Hi,

This will be a dumb question for most I am sure, but could someone please point me in the right direction of where the ESRI projection files need to be placed in order for them to be found when exporting an ESRI Shapefile from Pathfinder Office?  I have a folder containing 75 ESRI Projection files for New Zealand.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Regards,
Mark Peters

------------------------------
Mark Peters
------------------------------

This is the way im working.

I open the .SSF file from my Geo 7X in Pathfinder office.  I correct (or not) the .SSF file.   With the .SSF or the .COR file, I export it in ESRI format.  
The result is that I have a shapefile without a .prj file.

I open the shapefile in ArcGis and i define the projection WGS84.prj and it works.  After that, if needed, I can project the shapefile in any other projection.  


------------------------------
Daniel Plante
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-23-2022 19:15
From: Mark Peters
Subject: Pathfinder Office - ESRI projection files?

Hi,

This will be a dumb question for most I am sure, but could someone please point me in the right direction of where the ESRI projection files need to be placed in order for them to be found when exporting an ESRI Shapefile from Pathfinder Office?  I have a folder containing 75 ESRI Projection files for New Zealand.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Regards,
Mark Peters

------------------------------
Mark Peters
------------------------------

Daniel,
Do be careful with your workflow.  Not to preach, but I've been in the datum trenches so long and have fought my way out of shifted data so many times its impossible to count.
Uncorrected data, or WAAS data (typically) is in ITR2014.  A CORS station, when holding "use reference position from base file" is in NAD83 2011.  Treat the same shapefile with no PRJ, assigning both as WGS84, then "shifting" in ESRI to what you want just made the wrong assumption on B., and fighting your way back out is nigh impossible.

Occupy survey control - super easy with OPUS share.  Do it yourself - your method and you'll see the datum shift. the Geo7x precision in the open is subfoot, so a typical "shift is 4 times that error.

good luck.

------------------------------
Joel Cusick
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-26-2022 10:11
From: Daniel Plante
Subject: Pathfinder Office - ESRI projection files?

This is the way im working.

I open the .SSF file from my Geo 7X in Pathfinder office.  I correct (or not) the .SSF file.   With the .SSF or the .COR file, I export it in ESRI format.  
The result is that I have a shapefile without a .prj file.

I open the shapefile in ArcGis and i define the projection WGS84.prj and it works.  After that, if needed, I can project the shapefile in any other projection.  


------------------------------
Daniel Plante

Original Message:
Sent: 03-23-2022 19:15
From: Mark Peters
Subject: Pathfinder Office - ESRI projection files?

Hi,

This will be a dumb question for most I am sure, but could someone please point me in the right direction of where the ESRI projection files need to be placed in order for them to be found when exporting an ESRI Shapefile from Pathfinder Office?  I have a folder containing 75 ESRI Projection files for New Zealand.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Regards,
Mark Peters

------------------------------
Mark Peters
------------------------------