AutoCAD Tip – Showing Coordinates as Latitude and Longitude

by Dennis Collin

When working with larger scale drawings with aerial photography or satellite imagery overlay, there may be a need to access or show coordinates as degrees of latitude and longitude rather than cartesian coordinates.

Fig 1. Mapping overlay information can be accessed from the Insert tab within AutoCAD/LT.

If the drawing has been geolocated from online mapping data or a google KMZ or KML file, then this option is selectable from the coordinates display on the system tray.

Fig 2. By default, the coordinate tray reads coordinates defined from the current coordinate system.

If the coordinates tab is not visible, it can be enabled by clicking on the customisation button and ensure Coordinates is ticked at the top of the pop-up list

Once the drawing has been geolocated, right click on the coordinates display and choose Specific>Geographic. The coordinates will now display geographic world coordinates as opposed to cartesian coordinates from the World or User Coordinate System (WCS/UCS).

This can also be achieved by setting the System Variable COORDS to a value of 3 (Default value of 1).