ORA-20603: Spatial References are not compatible (from ST_Transform)

Error Message

SQL> select st_transform(shape,51)
  2  from parks_st
  3  where objectid = 1;
select st_transform(shape,51)
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-20603: Spatial References are not compatible.
ORA-06512: at "SDE.ST_GEOMETRY_SHAPELIB_PKG", line 752
ORA-06512: at "SDE.ST_GEOMETRY_OPERATORS", line 1882

Cause

If the datums of the source and destination spatial references are different, then ST_Transform fails with the error referenced above.

This is true of the implementations of ST_Transform on Oracle, IBM DB2, and IBM Informix.

Solution or Workaround

Only use ST_Transform with source and destination spatial references that have the same datum.