HOW TO EXTRACT GROUND DATA FROM GOOGLE EARTH AND TRANSFORM

THE DATA INTO PROJECTED COORDINATES FOR YOUR SPECIFIC GEOGRAPHIC

LOCATION AND COORDINATE SYSTEM

1. Open google Earth

2. On the tools bar, select ‘Add Path’
3. Draw shadings to cover the area of study (You may change the colour,
width etc. of the path), Click- Ok to end the path creation tool.
4. The New Path will appear in the side bar menu.
5. Right click the new path created and ‘Save Place As’. Then Select a
destination folder and file name. Save as a ‘.kmz’ or ‘.kml. file.

To convert this KML or KMZ data into Text data

1. Open internet browser – Search and open GPS Visualizer Elevation -

‘Solution 1: DEM Database’
2. Click on Choose file to upload your ‘.kmz’ or ‘.kml’ file.
3. Select the Output Format (plain Text)
4. Click ‘Convert and Add Elevation Button’ to process the data
5. Next, on the GPS Visualizer output page, you should see your data in the
specified format you selected.
6. Click ‘Download XXXXX-data.txt’ to download the output data.
7. You should see your output data in your ‘downloads’ folder
8. Open the text data in excel and save (.xls or .csv)

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To do the coordinate Projection.
Note that the output data from google earth, whether it is Lat-Long or UTM
system, is in the WGS1984 projection and we want to project it into any
other coordinate system e.g. Ghana Projection System.

1. Open ArcMap – New Workspace

2. On the tools bar, click ‘Add Data’ and Navigate to the location of the
output Data in the above step.
3. Select the Excel format of the data to add it as a layer.
4. Right Click the new Layer – ‘Select Display XY Data’ -
5. Match the Data Fields in the Excel with the XY Data Fields. (NB:
Longitude = x-coordinates = Easting and Latitude = y-coordinates=
Northings)
6. Click ‘Edit’ to select the source data Coordinate System Projection (google
map is in Geographic Coordinate System-World-WGS-1984)
7. Next, go to ‘Arc Toolbox’ – Data Management tools – Projections
and Transformations – and click on ‘Project’
8. In the Dialogue box, select the Input Data or Feature class (Which is the
Excel file you added as a layer)
9. Select Output folder
10.Now, in the output Coordinate System: Select the New Coordinate System
you want to project your Data into (e.g. Click on Output Projection Icon
to Open Dialog Box - Go to Projected Coordinate Systems – National
Grids – Africa – Accra Ghana Grid)
11.Click ‘OK’ to End to process your data.
12.The new data will appear in the Layers Menu and showing in the data
frame with the new coordinate system.
13.Right-Click on the Newly Projected layer – Open Attributes Table to view
the data. (It will be observed that the data is still in Lat-Long Format but

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 don’t panic in our next step we will do some geometry calculation to get
the new coordinates.)
14.Now in the Attribute table – drop down ‘table option menu’ (top left
corner) and Click ‘Add Field’.
15.In the Add Field dialogue box – Type the name of the new Field (Latitude
= Y = Northings) – Choose Type (Double) and click ‘Ok’
16.Do Same to Add another Field for (Longitude = X = Eastings) and click ‘Ok’
17.Now, Right-Click Each New Field created – Click on ‘Calculate Geometry’
– Select the field Property – Select the Unit of measurement and click ‘Ok’
to Transform the data in the selected field to the new coordinate system.
18.Repeat step (17) for the other fields.
19.Close Attribute Table.
20.Go to ‘Arc toolbox’ – ‘Conversion Tools menu’ – Expand Excel and Select
‘From Table to Excel’
21.Select the input file (the layer with the new projection attributes)
22.Select the Output Excel File Location and Click ‘OK’ to convert the layer
into excel.
23.Navigate to the Output Folder – to view your completed projected
coordinates file ready to be used in Civil 3d

Compiled by: Ing. Samuel Osei Asare, PE-GhIE

Civil Engineer||Highway Design Engineer
Road Area Manager
Ghana Highway Authority

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