2025 WA GIS Conference

Geospatial data are different than other data because they include something special: coordinates. This presentation will focus on those X, Y, Z and M coordinates that we care so much about. We’ll review coordinate systems and precision, and the key pieces of geospatial metadata we need to use coordinate data. How long is a degree, anyway? What are some data format considerations for coordinate precision? What’s the matter with Web Mercator? Since many GIS systems project data on the fly, why bother to project data into a cartesian coordinate system? Why does the choice of coordinate system for raster data and raster analysis so critical? Come for a review of these basic, yet very important topics.