<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40" xmlns:v =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:st1 =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2523" name=GENERATOR><!--[if !mso]>
<STYLE>v\:* {
BEHAVIOR: url(#default#VML)
}
o\:* {
BEHAVIOR: url(#default#VML)
}
w\:* {
BEHAVIOR: url(#default#VML)
}
.shape {
BEHAVIOR: url(#default#VML)
}
</STYLE>
<![endif]--><o:SmartTagType name="State"
namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:SmartTagType><o:SmartTagType
name="place"
namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:SmartTagType><!--[if !mso]>
<STYLE>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }
</STYLE>
<![endif]-->
<STYLE>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Wingdings;
panose-1:5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Tahoma;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-reply;
font-family:Arial;
color:navy;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
/* List Definitions */
@list l0
{mso-list-id:1911847245;
mso-list-type:hybrid;
mso-list-template-ids:-521997296 394953256 67698691 67698693 67698689 67698691 67698693 67698689 67698691 67698693;}
@list l0:level1
{mso-level-start-at:0;
mso-level-number-format:bullet;
mso-level-text:-;
mso-level-tab-stop:33.0pt;
mso-level-number-position:left;
margin-left:33.0pt;
text-indent:-.25in;
font-family:Arial;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}
ol
{margin-bottom:0in;}
ul
{margin-bottom:0in;}
-->
</STYLE>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></HEAD>
<BODY lang=EN-US vLink=purple link=blue bgColor=white>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Most all of the files I've found use the
latitude/longitue extents. My US states outline that I am
using actually had it's boundries set to soemthing like -171 172 because
it included everything from the continental US to far away US territires like
the Virgin Islands. I just set my .map file extents to display the
section I wanted... I actually used -80.2 40.8 -68.1 44.5, which is
more or less what you said.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>For road information, I usually use Tiger line data
if you know that they use a particular projection.... though I'm trying to find
some data that includes an entire state in a single shapefile instead of having
it split up by county... the area I'm trying to plot includes 8 or 9 states and
I don't really want to have to create a separate layer for every
county.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I've never used the shpdump utility, i've only used
ogrinfo but I'll give it a try and see if that gives me any more
insight.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Thanks for the input,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Jeff</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=ed@TOPOZONE.COM href="mailto:ed@TOPOZONE.COM">Ed McNierney</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=MAPSERVER-USERS@LISTS.UMN.EDU
href="mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS@LISTS.UMN.EDU">MAPSERVER-USERS@LISTS.UMN.EDU</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Friday, January 21, 2005 11:23
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS]
projection questions</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV class=Section1>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial color=navy size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Jeff
–<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial color=navy size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial color=navy size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Unfortunately, ESRI
forgot about projections when the shapefile format was created. There
was a later addition of a .prj file to go along with shapefiles and describe
their projection. If you have a .prj file of the same base name, you
will have that information – I expect you do not.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial color=navy size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial color=navy size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Without that
information you’re down to educated guesses. There are three likely
candidates for US data – geographic (unprojected) coordinates, a UTM
projection, or a state plane projection. If you are dealing with a
multiple-state area, state plane is unlikely.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial color=navy size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial color=navy size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Can you examine the
coordinates in the shapefile by either using the shpdump utility or loading
the shapefile into a GIS viewer and reading the coordinates? For
<st1:place w:st="on">New England</st1:place>, geographic coordinates will have
X values ranging from around -74 to -66, and Y values between 41 and
48. UTM coordinates will range between X values of 200000 to 700000 and
Y values between 4500000 and 5250000. As you can see, these are
obviously different and easy to distinguish.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial color=navy size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial color=navy size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">If you find you have
values that don’t match either of these, let us know what they are; the
shpdump utility will give you the bounding box of all shapes in the shapefile,
and that’s a good guide.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial color=navy size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="MARGIN-LEFT: 33pt; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1"><![if !supportLists]><FONT
face=Arial color=navy size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><SPAN
style="mso-list: Ignore">-<FONT face="Times New Roman" size=1><SPAN
style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'">
</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN></FONT><![endif]><FONT face=Arial color=navy
size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Ed<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial color=navy size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial color=navy size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Ed
McNierney<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial color=navy size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">TopoZone.com<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial color=navy size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" align=center><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
<HR tabIndex=-1 align=center width="100%" SIZE=2>
</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><B><FONT face=Tahoma size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">From:</SPAN></FONT></B><FONT
face=Tahoma size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"> UMN
MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS@LISTS.UMN.EDU] <B><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">On Behalf Of </SPAN></B>Jeff Portwine<BR><B><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sent:</SPAN></B> Friday, January 21, 2005 10:49
AM<BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">To:</SPAN></B>
MAPSERVER-USERS@LISTS.UMN.EDU<BR><B><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Subject:</SPAN></B> [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] projection
questions</SPAN></FONT><o:p></o:p></P></DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P></DIV>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Is there an easy way to figure out
what projection my shapefile was created with? I have a map of the
<st1:place w:st="on">New England</st1:place> area that was created in
Microsoft's Map Point, and I am more or less trying to re-create that map with
mapserver. I started with an outline of the United States and
then set the extents to display the area that I wanted, but the maps look very
different and i'm positive it's becuase I'm not using proper projections
(I don't expect the maps to look exactly alike of course, but the general
shape should be pretty close). I always use ogrinfo to get
the extents and see projection information of shapefiles that I've downloaded
but more often than not , the ogrinfo just returns: "Layer SRS WKT:
(Unknown)" instead of telling me the projection it was created
with.</SPAN></FONT><o:p></o:p></P></DIV>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P></DIV>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I also am not sure how to go about
choosing my output projection... I've been using EPSG:4269 because as I
understand it that is a midwest projection and when I first started playing
with mapserver I was making maps of <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Michigan</st1:place></st1:State>. Anybody know a
good source to look up what would be the best output projection for different
areas of the country/world? </SPAN></FONT><o:p></o:p></P></DIV>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P></DIV>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">As you can tell i'm really new to
GIS and while I do understand the idea of projections I just don't know
anything about them or how to apply them.</SPAN></FONT><o:p></o:p></P></DIV>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P></DIV>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Thanks a
lot,</SPAN></FONT><o:p></o:p></P></DIV>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Jeff</SPAN></FONT><o:p></o:p></P></DIV>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>