Real-World Applications of COLUMBUS

Importing and Exporting Coordinates

• Problem and Solution
• Steps
  • Import
  • Transformation
  • Export
• Questions or comments
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Solution: Use COLUMBUS to not only import the coordinates, but also perform the transformation and export the State Plane coordinate results. Here's how:

Steps

Import

1. From the Options menu, select Import File Setup | User Defined. Specify the ordering and field types found in the file to be imported.
   1. If the coordinate input file is ordered as STATION NAME,LATITUDE,LONGITUDE:

      Specify Station Name first, followed by Geo Latitude and Geo Longitude.

   2. If the file is comma-delimited as in this example, put the comma character (,) in the Delimiter box.

      Specify the Lat/Long Format of the coordinates in the file to be imported. If they are in the form DD.MMSSsss (degrees minutes seconds), select the first option. For DD.ddddd (decimal degrees), select the second option, and so on.

2. You also need to specify the Quadrant Sign for geodetic coordinates:
   1. If your latitudes are positive in the northern hemisphere and your longitudes are negative in the western hemisphere, select N+S- W-E+

   2. If your latitudes are negative in the northern hemisphere and your longitudes are negative in the western hemisphere, select N-S+ W-E+

   3. If your latitudes are positive in the northern hemisphere and your longitudes are positive in the western hemisphere, select N+S- W+E-

   4. If your latitudes are negative in the northern hemisphere and your longitudes are positive in the western hemisphere, select N-S+ W+E-

   Note: For each case, the latitude and longitude sign values found in the file (positive or negative) must be the same as the option selected. For example, if you choose the Option 2A above, your latitudes in the file must be positive if they are in the northern hemisphere, and your longitudes in the file must be negative if they are in the western hemisphere.

3. Select OK to keep the settings.

4. From the Options menu, select Units | Linear units. Specify the linear units of the coordinates found in the coordinate file. In this case, no linear coordinates are in the file.

5. From the Options menu, select Datums. Specify the datum to be active before loading the file (WGS 84, NAD 83, NAD 27, and so on.). The data will be associated with this datum when it is imported.

6. From the File menu, select Import - Coordinate Files and select the file to open. The file will be imported into the current project. Once imported, you may want to save the modified project to a COLUMBUS ASCII (Text) file for future loading.

To transform the geodetic coordinates to State Plane, from the Tools menu select Transformation | State Plane <-> Geodetic. Keep the new State Plane coordinates into memory. For details on this step, see the User Manual (available for downloading as Adobe Acrobat PDF files.

Export

You are now ready to export the new State Plane coordinates to a new coordinate-delimited file.

1. From the Options menu, select Export File Setup | User Defined. Specify the ordering and field types of the file to be exported.
   1. If the file is to be ordered as: STATION NAME,STATE PLANE NORTH,STATE PLANE EAST:

      Specify Station Name first, followed by State Plane North and State Plane East.

   2. To make the file comma-delimited, put the comma character (,) in the Delimiter box.

2. Select OK to keep the settings.

3. From the Options menu, select Units | Linear units. Specify the linear units in which to export the State Plane coordinates.

4. From the Tools menu, select User Defined Xport. Select all the stations with State Plane coordinates. Select OK. Enter the output data file name and press the Save button to export your coordinates.

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