Creating custom coordinate system in ArcGIS Pro?

Question

I wish to apply a custom coordinate system to a Map in ArcGIS Pro 1.4.1 and I read at GeoNet that this is not possible (at least up until 1.3.1).

The coordinate system that I wish to create is for GDA 1994 Queensland Albers which is identical to GDA 1994 Australia Albers except for having different central meridian and standard parallel values.

I ran the code below to create an empty feature class with a coordinate system modified from that of GDA 1994 Australia Albers:

import arcpy
arcpy.management.CreateFeatureclass(r"C:\Temp\TestProject\TestProject.gdb", "QldAlbers", "POLYGON", None, "DISABLED", "DISABLED", None, None, 0, 0, 0)
fc = r"C:\Temp\TestProject\TestProject.gdb\QldAlbers"
srAustAlbers = arcpy.SpatialReference("GDA 1994 Australia Albers")
srAustAlbersAsString = srAustAlbers.exportToString()
print(srAustAlbersAsString)
srQldAlbersAsString = srAustAlbersAsString.replace("Australia","Queensland").replace(",132.0",",146.0").replace(",-18.0",",-13.166667").replace(",-36.0",",-25.833333")
print(srQldAlbersAsString)
srQldAlbersAsString = srQldAlbersAsString.split(";")[0]
print(srQldAlbersAsString)
arcpy.management.DefineProjection(fc, srQldAlbersAsString)

Armed with a feature class having my desired custom coordinate system I inserted a new Map into an ArcGIS Pro Project and used its Properties to import the custom coordinate system from that feature class.

All went well except for the warning that:

Imported coordinate system only contains xy coordinate system. Only the xy coordinate system will be changed.

enter image description here

Despite the warning I think I have created a Map with a valid custom coordinate system, but is this the only way to do it?

• gisnside: It seems to me the software is just saying your Z values will not be considered. .. Do you really need those Z values ?
• PolyGeo: @gisnside I don't believe so (but I'm not a geodesist).

Answer 1

I think it would be simpler to go through ArcMap instead.

You could then tweak the existing system with a gui instead of going through ArcPy.

Copy and Edit

Edit GUI

• PolyGeo: For today that is a good option but the day will come soon when many users may not have ArcMap installed.
• gisnside: I didn't install Arcgis Pro for a specific reason : in my opinion it's not really ready (still things missing like this one). I'm confident the day you mention will arrive sooner or later...but ESRI will first have to convince arcmap users like me everything they had in arcmap can be found in Arcgis Pro :) I tried once and got a cold shower seeing my usual tools where not there anymore...
• PolyGeo: I tend to adopt early because it lets me learn the strengths and weaknesses of a new architecture sooner rather later. I've just undertaken a three month ArcPy/Pro map automation project which I was sceptical could be achieved that way at the outset and half expected to pull the pin and revert to ArcMap a week or so in, but after a few days I was confident that all I needed was there. There were a few concerns along the way but I was quickly able to find Pro workflows/workarounds for anything that I thought it could not do at first analysis.
• gisnside: Thanks for your enlightened advice :) From what you say, I might have a try now !