By Alissa Oder

DAT/EM offers Blue Marble’s Coordinate Translation options in Summit Evolution and in several other DAT/EM applications. For example, Summit > Orientation > Coordinate Conversion leads to the Blue Marble settings dialogs.

When you make certain coordinate system selections, it will give a message asking about a 3D point style. Always answer Yes to this question!

After selecting Yes, select “Projected Point in (ground units for the project)”, such as “Projected Point in Meters”. If you need to select a foot unit, be sure to select the correct U.S. or International foot option for your project. The unit you choose should list “3” in the “Dimensions” column.

The three most common 3D point styles for Summit projects

Additional notes about coordinate conversion with Summit Evolution:

• DAT/EM updated its Blue Marble coordinate conversion components with version 7.3 and the system lookups are not the same. When you use 7.3 or higher to open older Summit projects with active coordinate conversion, you must select the input and output coordinate system settings again.
• Always set your coordinate conversion with 100% certainty before digitizing vectors with Summit Evolution. DAT/EM software does not translate coordinate systems for vector files that are digitized in the wrong system. If you need to do that, you will need to use a third-party application.

If you have any questions about coordinate conversion in DAT/EM software, contact support@datem.com.

-end-