Are you using GPS captured data within ArcGIS desktop?
Ever wanted a more accurate transformation for your GPS captured data when displayed on a BNG basemap?
Making this possible has been a personal challenge for myself and a number of colleagues for sometime as over the past 12 months we have seen an increasing number of customers requesting this capability.
I am happy to announce, after working in collaboration with DGC and Ordnance Survey, Esri UK have released OSTN02 support within ArcGIS desktop. For those of you not familiar with the intricacies of transformations in the UK, OSTN02 is a very accurate grid based transformation between British National Grid and WGS84 (Lat/Long). It can be used when collecting data from a GPS that is to be stored in a British National Grid feature class or for transforming British National Grid data to WGS84.
Aware that the Defence Geographic Centre (DGC) had previously carried out some work in this area I approached them to see if they were willing to share the transformation with the rest of the GIS user community. DGC were happy for this to happen and Ordnance Survey have provided quality assurance, ensuring the transformation works as expected.
For those that are interested, the OSTN02 NTv2 transformation file can be downloaded from myEsriUK. You will also find a full set of instructions on how to configure the files at this location. We have long supported the transformation in ArcPAD and you can download the relevant files for ArcPAD from this location too.
Thanks to DGC and Ordnance Survey for helping to make this happen. I hope you are able to make use of the new transformation in your work.
NB: In ArcGIS desktop the OSTN02 NTv2 transformation is called OSGB_1936_To_WGS_1984_7