HOW TO
Note: VBA scripts are specific to the version of VBA that was shipped with the version of ArcMap in use. Therefore, this script may not work with your version. However, this script may serve as a template for modification, if desired. Support for Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) for ArcMap and ArcCatalog ended with the ArcGIS 10.2.2 release, and Esri has not included VBA compatibility setups since version 10.5. See: ArcGIS Desktop and VBA Moving Forward To perform coordinate conversion, Esri recommends using the Convert Coordinate Notation tool in ArcTolbox > Projections and Transformations toolset.
Caution: The procedure below is for ArcGIS 9.3.1 or earlier versions. Starting at ArcGIS 10.0, expressions in the Calculator are created using only VBScript or a standard Python format.
Instructions provided describe how to use the Field Calculator to convert Degrees Minutes Seconds stored in a string field to Decimal Degrees stored in a number field. The values must be stored in a field in a table as Degrees Minutes Seconds with no symbols. For example:
25 35 22.3
In the example, 25 is degrees, 35 is minutes and 22.3 is seconds.
Follow the steps below.
Note: Initially perform the steps below on positive numbers. After the conversion is complete, multiple any fields that need to be negative by -1.
Note: The format of the records within the Degrees/Minutes/Second fields must be DD MM SS. Any blank records or records with extra spaces or characters, such as single or double quotes, may cause a user interrupted error.
Dim Degrees as Double Dim Minutes as Double Dim Seconds as Double Dim DMS as Variant Dim DD as Double DMS = Split([Latitude]) Degrees = CDbl(DMS(0)) Minutes = CDbl(DMS(1)) Seconds = CDbl(DMS(2)) DD = (Seconds/3600) + (Minutes/60)+ Degrees
CDbl(DD)
Note: Null values in the DMS field will cause an error when running the VBA code in the Field Calculator.
Get help from ArcGIS experts
Download the Esri Support App