Upload fails with .prj but says projection was not defined

[ingenieroariel]

Added a zipped file with the sample data (please remove the .gif extension) and an screenshot

https://f.cloud.github.com/assets/54999/562559/cedb1274-c4ad-11e2-98bc-74641c101570.gif

[mbertrand]

@ingenieroariel, When I try to load this shapefile in QGIS it opens the Coordinate Reference System Selector dialog - so QGIS can't seem to figure out the projection either. Maybe it's a bad/mismatched prj file? Seems to be a few "unknowns" inside it:

GEOGCS["GCS_unnamed ellipse",DATUM["D_unknown",SPHEROID["Unknown",6378137,0]]

[capooti]

both QGIS and PostGIS/GeoServer use GDAL, so I think it is an invalid project file, maybe generated with some software not using GDAL. Can you attach a zip of this dataset here?

[mbertrand]

@capooti, here it is, replace .gif with .zip after downloading: https://f.cloud.github.com/assets/54999/562559/cedb1274-c4ad-11e2-98bc-74641c101570.gif

[capooti]

On my box both QGIS and GDAL (1.10) recognize the .prj without problems. Thinking about it well, I think GeoServer it is using an internal PROJ.4 version to detect the spatial reference. I have tried to manually create the Shapefile Store in GS: when I try to publish Nativer SRS is detected as UNKNOWN, and Declared SRS is missing, therefore trying to publish it fails. Declaring a WGS84 seems working.

So far, I think you have two options (I did not test both of them):

1. use another prj file, with a WGS84 declaration
2. try adding a custom projection in GeoServer, with the prj declaration: http://docs.geoserver.org/stable/en/user/advanced/crshandling/customcrs.html you could use this definition: http://spatialreference.org/ref/sr-org/google-projection/html/ This way GeoServer should recognize the .prj file

In any case I think it makes sense that GeoNode raises that error, and the error message seems to me adequate. A possible improvement for GeoNode > 2.0 could be to let the user to declare the EPSG when uploading if .prj is missing or incorrectly read.

[ingenieroariel]

Thanks for this debugging info guys. If I am not mistaken, this dataset in particular is part of the Natural Earth vector dataset, the one recommended for OSGeo LiveDVD examples.

Am I correct to assume that this file is EPSG:900913 (or similar) instead of WGS84?

On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 4:03 AM, Paolo Corti notifications@github.comwrote:

On my box both QGIS and GDAL (1.10) recognize the .prj without problems. Thinking about it well, I think GeoServer it is using an internal PROJ.4 version to detect the spatial reference. I have tried to manually create the Shapefile Store in GS: when I try to publish Nativer SRS is detected as UNKNOWN, and Declared SRS is missing, therefore trying to publish it fails. Declaring a WGS84 seems working.

So far, I think you have two options (I did not test both of them):

1. use another prj file, with a WGS84 declaration
2. try adding a custom projection in GeoServer, with the prj declaration: http://docs.geoserver.org/stable/en/user/advanced/crshandling/customcrs.html you could use this definition: http://spatialreference.org/ref/sr-org/google-projection/html/ This way GeoServer should recognize the .prj file

In any case I think it makes sense that GeoNode raises that error, and the error message seems to me adequate. A possible improvement for GeoNode > 2.0 could be to let the user to declare the EPSG when uploading if .prj is missing or incorrectly read.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/issues/880#issuecomment-18963528 .

[capooti]

Yes, according to this: http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/gdal-dev/2011-September/030284.html So, rather thant messing up the GeoServer EPSG database I think using an EPSG:900913 will be the way to go. cheers

[ingenieroariel]

Okay, I am closing this as it is specific to that dataset. If it becomes more serious than this, please reopen.