EditTools User Guide

INDEX

System Requirements:

Installation:

IMPORTANT NOTES:

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ET Main Dialog:

4032001ETMain.jpg (16915 bytes) etbut1.gif (969 bytes) Button introduces EditTools main dialog
  • EDIT THEME button initiates an editing session. If you have editable theme in the View ET Polyline or ET Polygon  Dialog will be introduced depending on the type of the editable theme .  If you don't have editable theme a list of the available themes in the View will be introduced to select theme to edit.
  • SURFACE FUNCTIONS button opens ET Surface Dialog
  • GEOPROCESSING button opens ET Geoprocessing Dialog
  • CONVERT button introduces ET Convert Dialog
  • MISCELLANEOUS button opens ET Miscellaneous Dialog

 

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ET Polyline:

3004etpolyline.jpg (20022 bytes) NOTES:
  • EditTools allows user control over the way the attributes are updated when   polylines are split or merged. In order to ensure that the attributes are updated appropriately go to THEME/PROPERTIES/EDITING and adjust the values in the Attribute Updating panel.
  • IMPORTANT See discussion about Fuzzy Tolerance
  • The UNITS used are the map units of the current VIEW

New Features:

Minimize/Maximize button is provided to allow the user to free some screen space when the global functions are not in use.

Start Vertex End Vertex
29102000start.jpg (4454 bytes) 29102000end.jpg (4580 bytes)

Allows rotating the point symbols with the bearing of the pertaining line segments

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Clean Dialog:

1206plclean.jpg (16829 bytes) NOTES:
  • In order to ensure that the attributes are updated appropriately go to THEME/PROPERTIES/EDITING and adjust the values in the Attribute Updating panel before performing any editing.
  • Use CTRL + Z to UNDO last edit

Self Intersect Check Control Panel allows the user to select Fast or Full (slow if many features in the current Theme) check for self intersection to be performed.

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Generalize__Densify__Smooth_Flip  Dialog:

15012001gdsf.jpg (12182 bytes) Select a function using the radio buttons in the function control panel

Generalize : Uses the Douglas-Peucker's algorithm for generalization of a Polyline

Densify: adds vertices to  polylines at a user-specified tolerance.

Smooth: smooths  polylines  using the user-specified tolerance.

Flip: changes the direction of polylines

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Edge Match Dialog

15012001em.jpg (18846 bytes)

15012001em_link_dg.jpg (14458 bytes)

Edgematching is done to ensure that features are aligned along the edges of adjoining shape files.

The Edgematching process uses three themes:
  • edit theme - the theme whose features will be adjusted
  • snap theme - a theme whose features are used as the control points for moving edit theme features.
  • link theme - a polyline theme that contains the links to be used for edge matching

15012001emex1.jpg (35243 bytes)

The link theme can be:

  • an existing in the current view polyline theme. The polylines should be a single segmented.
  • imported from a table. The table must have at least four numeric fields representing the   X and Y coordinates of the START and END point of a LINK
  • Create button in the Link Theme control panel will create a new LINK theme and will introduce the Edit Link Theme dialog
  • Edit button in the Link Theme control panel will introduce the Edit Link Theme dialog

Edit Link Theme Dialog has three tools for editing a LINK theme

  • Generate Links Tool - the user draws a polygon including the edges of the EDIT and   Snap themes. If a node from the EDIT theme is closer to a node from the SNAP theme than the specified tolerance a link is created connecting the two nodes.

15012001em_gen_links.jpg (13185 bytes)

  • Add Link Tool - the user draws a line (link) using selected snap method and tolerance
  • Delete Links Tool

Edge Matching Methods:

Before Edge Match After Edge Match
15012001em_snap_before.jpg (12129 bytes) 15012001em_snap_after.jpg (11702 bytes)

NOTE: In some cases using ADJUST function produces better results

Buffered Convex Hull Buffered Points Areas of influence
15012001em_buff.jpg (18357 bytes) 15012001em_hull.jpg (18787 bytes) 15012001em_influ.jpg (21771 bytes)
Before Edge Match After Edge Match
15012001em_adj_before.jpg (22995 bytes) 15012001em_adj_after.jpg (19792 bytes)

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Adjust Dialog

15012001adj.jpg (12657 bytes) Adjusts or rubber sheets a polylines from a theme in direction along the links from a  link theme

For description of Edit Theme, Snap Theme and Link theme see Edge Match.

The procedure builds a TIN surface from the links in the link theme and interpolates the transformation vectors for each polyline vertex from the edit theme, then the vertices are transformed with the displacement vectors interpolated.

NOTES:

  • It is important the links to be spread systematically over the entire theme including along the outer edges.
  • The further away a coordinate is from a link, the less effect that link has on the coordinate’s adjustment.
  • In some cases Adjust function gives better results  for Edge Matching than the   EdgeMatch function

One of the major uses for ADJUST is to perform datum conversions. In this case the link theme can be imported from a table containing the coordinates of  the control points

Before Adjust After Adjust
15012001adjust_before.jpg (16273 bytes) 15012001adjust_after.jpg (13790 bytes)

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Polyline Edit Tools Dialog

15012001plet.jpg (29189 bytes)

NOTE:

In order to ensure that the attributes are updated appropriately go to THEME/PROPERTIES/EDITING and adjust the values in the Attribute Updating panel before performing any editing.

All the actions can be undone using CTRL+Z.

Main Tools

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Attribute Tools.

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Additional Tools

They are situated on the second row (together with the attributes tools),but can be as useful as the ones from the top row:

Status Bar

Situated on the third row of the Edit Tools Dialog.  Keeps the values of the different tolerances, selection method, attribute source theme,and feature source theme.

 

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Polygon Editing

The Concept:

ArcView allows overlapping polygon features which leads in many cases to "dirty" data sets.

EditTools introduces new concept for adding new features to a Polygon theme which keeps the theme clean from overlaps. Before any editing operation (digitizing new feature, coping polygon from another theme, reshaping existing polygon) the user defines the PRIORITY of  the new (edited) feature and in this way how this feature will interact with the adjacent polygons.

Example:

Source Adding new polygon
wpe40.jpg (3060 bytes) wpe41.jpg (3412 bytes)

The result of adding the new polygon with the different priorities:

Priority "-1" Priority "0" - LOW Priority "1" - STANDARD Priority "2" -HIGH
wpe46.jpg (3093 bytes) wpe48.jpg (3358 bytes) wpe49.jpg (3602 bytes) wpe4A.jpg (3369 bytes)
Cuts holes in the existing polygons. Creates polygon(s) only where there is no existing polygons present. Creates intersections where the new polygon intersects existing one. The intersection polygons carry the attributes of the existing ones. The entire new polygon is added to the theme. All the intersections with existing polygons are removed.

Using the appropriate PRIORITY the user can achieve the desired result with keeping the polygon theme clean of overlaps or clean an existing theme. NO SNAPPING needed.

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ET Polygon:

4032001ETPolygon.jpg (18783 bytes) ET Polygon dialog is used for all the global(applied to the whole theme) functions.

Edit Theme control panel shows the View of the currently edited theme, the value of the Fuzzy Tolerance and contains three buttons:

  • Current Theme Button - Sets the theme to be edited. The label of this Button shows the name of current theme
  • Fuzzy Tolerance Button - Although  not as important as when editing Polyline theme this tolerance is used here as well. See ET Polyline for adjusting Fuzzy Tolerance
  • Minimize/Maximize button is provided to allow the user to free some screen space when the global functions are not in use.

Start Editing Button - toggles editing the Current Theme

Save Button - Saves the edits

Save As Button - Saves the Current Theme as new theme. The new theme becomes Current

Show Edit Tools Button - toggles Polygon Edit Tools Dialog

Clean Button - triggers the clean process.

Example: Before CLEAN After CLEAN
The polygons are labeled with an attribute value. The brown polygons after CLEAN do not carry attributes wpe4D.jpg (3801 bytes) wpe4E.jpg (3993 bytes)

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Eliminate Button: Opens Eliminate Dialog

14082000Eliminate.jpg (13272 bytes) Select using: Control Panel gives two choices for selecting the polygons to be eliminated:
  • Thickness Ratio - is expressed as a ratio of the part's area versus area of its minimal bounding square.
  • Circularity - another way for identifying skinny  polygons. For a circle the circularity will be 1. The thinner the polygon is the smaller the circularity will be
  • Logical Expression - the standard Expression builder issued for selection

Eliminate method Control Panel has two choices for eliminating the selected polygons

  • Delete - will delete all selected polygons (considered slivers)
  • Join (area) - will join selected polygons with neighboring polygons  that have the largest area
  • Join (border) - will join selected polygons with neighboring polygons with the longest common border

Select Button - triggers the chosen selection procedure

Eliminate Button - starts the elimination process using the selected elimination method

Discussion:

Example: After Selection "[ID] = 0" After Eliminate
wpe4E.jpg (3993 bytes) elim1.jpg (5754 bytes) elim2.jpg (5285 bytes)

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Clean Gaps button - starts a procedure which identifies the gaps between polygons and then introduces the Clean Gaps Dialog

gapsdlg.jpg (13181 bytes) Gaps Statistics Control panel gives
  • number of gaps found
  • Min & Max area of the gaps
  • Min & Max thickness of the gaps

Clean Control Panel gives three choices for the method of cleaning gaps:

  • All - all gaps will be cleaned
  • Thickness Ratio - user can select which gaps to clean using Thickness Ratio
  • Area - the gaps with smaller than user specified area will be cleaned

Clean Gaps button joins the gaps to the  neighboring polygons  that have the largest area

Example:

Before Clean Gaps After Clean Gaps
gaps2.jpg (3356 bytes) gaps1.jpg (3528 bytes)

Dissolve button: Merges adjacent polygons which have the same value for one or more specified fields.

Notes:

Example:

Before Dissolve - 4 polygons After Dissolve with ET - 3 Polygons Results from GeoProcessing Wizard - 2 Polygons (1 multipart)
dis1.jpg (4792 bytes) dis2.jpg (4597 bytes) dis3.jpg (5024 bytes)

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Advanced Merge button: User selects a theme to be merged to the currently edited theme. Introduces Advanced Merge Dialog.

merge.jpg (7945 bytes) The polygons from the selected theme will be added to the edited theme using user specified PRIORITY.

The PRIORITY can be constant or various - from user defined field in the selected theme attribute table.

  • The Priority field must be Integer
  • The values in the Priority field must be set between -1 and 2. All the values greater than 2 will be considered 2 and those smaller than -1 will be considered -1.
  • The result is a clean (no overlaps, no multipart polygons) theme.

Split with Polygon - User selects a split theme. The selected features of the split theme are used to split the features of the current edit theme. The attributes are updated according user defined attribute split rules

COGO - initiates a COGO session. If current theme is editable the COGO polygon will be added to the theme else a graphic shape will be drawn. See ET Cogo for details.

Create Label Points - creates a Point theme. Each polygon from the Current theme is represented by one an only one point situated spatially inside the polygon. All the attributes from the current theme are transferred to the label point theme

Attributes from points - Transfer attributes from a point theme to the current theme. If there are more than one point inside certain polygon no attributes are transferred.

Common functions - opens ET Common Dialog

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Polygon Edit Tools:

1206pgEditTools.jpg (30126 bytes)

NOTE:

All the actions can be undone using CTRL+Z.

Main Tools

Priority Control Panel prio1.jpg (2202 bytes) - Before adding new polygon or editing an existing one the user must specify the PRIORITY of this feature.

Select Tool selectTool.jpg (1354 bytes) - see description here

Add Shape Tool addshape.jpg (705 bytes) - adds new shape to the current theme. Use CTRL + Click to select shape type from 1206shapetodraw.jpg (6444 bytes) the available shape types are:

Add Donut Tool don1.jpg (705 bytes) - adds new donut to the current theme. Use CTRL + Click to select shape type from 1206donuttype.jpg (5592 bytes) the available donut  types are:

Fill Holes Tool holes.jpg (754 bytes) - the user selects polygons using the current selection method, the holes if present in the selected polygons are cleaned. Use CTRL+Select to convert the holes into new polygons

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Reshape Tool reshape.jpg (679 bytes) - the user draws a polygon, the start point should be in the polygon to be reshaped. Only two values for  priority available for this function - "0" and "2".  If the priority is set to "-1" it goes automatically to "0" and if "1"  - to "2"

Example:

Before Reshape. The reshape polygon and it's start point shown on the image. After Reshape with priority of "0". Ideal for filling gaps. After Reshape with priority of "2"
resh1.jpg (4897 bytes) resh2.jpg (2786 bytes) resh3.jpg (3011 bytes)

Buffer Polygon Tool buf0.jpg (699 bytes) buffers single polygon selected by point

Example:

Before buffer Priority  = -1 Priority  = 0 Priority  = 1 Priority  = 2
buf1.jpg (3635 bytes) buf2.jpg (3926 bytes) buf3.jpg (5111 bytes) buf4.jpg (5206 bytes) buf5.jpg (5281 bytes)

Explode Tool explode.jpg (693 bytes) Explodes selected multipart polygons

Merge Tool join.jpg (680 bytes) User selects with a line two adjacent polygons. The polygon that contains the start point of the selection line is merged with the one containing the end point. The attributes of the second polygon are kept.

Local Dissolve Tool locdis1.jpg (793 bytes) User selects a single polygon by point. All the adjacent polygons with the same value in the selected dissolve fields are merged to the selected polygon.

Copy From Theme Tool copy1.jpg (732 bytes) Use SHIFT +Click to select source theme. Use current selection method for selection. The selected polygons are added to the Current theme using   current PRIORITY.

Draw Line Buffer Tool drawlinebuf.jpg (717 bytes) Use CTRL+Click to define buffer distance. User draws a Polyline which is added to the current theme using current PRIORITY

Copy Line (Point) Buffer copylinebuf.jpg (735 bytes) Use CTRL+Click to define buffer distance.Use SHIFT +Click to select source polyline or point theme. Current selection method is used. Buffers selected features from the source theme and adds the buffer polygons to the Current theme using  current PRIORITY.

Select polylines from a theme and split Tool 1206splitbypolyline.jpg (1041 bytes) Use SHIFT +Click to select source polyline  theme. Select polylines to split with. Only polylines connected via pseudo node will be used for splitting. Adjust attributes split rules before this procedure.

Show Control Panel showWhat.jpg (1854 bytes)  See description here

Attribute Tools - See description here

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Additional Tools

They are situated on the second row (together with the attributes tools),but can be as useful as the ones from the top row:

Draw Advanced Buffer Tool drawadv.jpg (758 bytes) and Copy Advanced Buffer Tool copyadv.jpg (764 bytes) work as Draw Line Buffer Tool and Copy Line Buffer Tool. The difference is they allow more complex buffers to be created:

advbufdlg.jpg (15440 bytes) CTRL+Click (on both tools) invokes Advanced Buffer Dialog which allows the user to specify the type of buffer and the buffer distance

Examples:

examp1.jpg (7956 bytes)

Gaps Control Panel gapstools.jpg (1763 bytes) contains two buttons. The first identifies the gaps in the Current theme and fills the gaps list. The second one zooms to each gap in the gaps list and the user can clean it manually using Polygon Reshape Tool. If some of the gaps can not be cleaned with the automatic procedure, or the user wants to inspect the gaps this buttons can be used.

 

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ET Cogo - allows the user to build traverses adding straight or curved courses using numerous parameters

1206cogostart.jpg (13892 bytes) ET Cogo Dialog
  • Define TakeOff point by:
    • X & Y
    • Interactively
      • Start or End point of the selected feature
      • Closest vertex of the selected feature
      • Freehand
  • Set Start Point button locates and assigns takeoff point for a traverse
  • Traverse button opens traverse dialog
  • Quit - ends the COGO session
14082000Traverse.jpg (20115 bytes) ET Traverse Dialog

Current location Control Panel shows the coordinates of the last point of the traverse

Next course , Curve Direction and Course parameters Control panels allow the user to define the geometry of the next course.

The following combinations are possible:

  • Straight
    • Distance & Bearing
    • X & Y
    • dX & dY
    • use the GetBearing tool to get the bearing from a feature from the active theme
    • use +90 or -90 buttons to increase (decrease) the bearing with 90 degrees.
    • the two features above allow adding courses parallel or perpendicular to existing features from the active theme
  • Fillet - Distance,Bearing & Fillet radius
  • Tangent curve (left or right to the previous course)
    • Chord  length & Delta
    • Chord length & Radius
    • Chord length & Arc
    • Arc length & Radius
    • Arc length & Delta
    • Radius & Delta
  • Non tangent curve (left or right to the previous course)
    • Chord length, Chord Bearing & Radius
    • Chord length, Chord Bearing & Arc length
    • Chord length, Chord Bearing & Delta

Note: A traverse can not start with Fillet or Tangent curve

Add Course button adds a course with the predefined parameters to the traverse

Undo - removes the last course of the traverse (multiple undo supported)

Close Traverse - closes current traverse

END  button - if current theme is editable - adds the traverse as a feature in the theme otherwise creates a graphic shape in the view.

1206cogotraverse.jpg (22196 bytes)
1206cogoazimuth.jpg (9275 bytes) By default the bearing is entered as Decimal Degrees - (45.2375).

Hold the CONTROL key and click on the Bearing Text Line to introduce ET Azimuth dialog which allows the bearing to be entered as an Azimuth ((N 45 23 00 E). The direction is defined by the selected radio button.

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ET Surface:

4032001ETSurface.jpg (7915 bytes)

4032001ETSurfaceAnalysis.jpg (12370 bytes)

TIN's legend Classified by:

MIN Elevation
4032001SElev.jpg (8122 bytes)
Slope
4032001SSlope.jpg (20366 bytes)
Aspect
4032001SAspect.jpg (24353 bytes)
4032001SAspectLeg.jpg (10879 bytes)
Hillshade
4032001SHill.jpg (13028 bytes)
MIN Elevation illuminated with Hillshade values
4032001SIluminated.jpg (12586 bytes)
Build TIN -  TIN (Triangulated Irregular Network) is a set of contiguous, non-overlapping, triangles representing a surface. The procedure triangulates a set of points (Point or Polyline theme ) using Delaunay triangulation. The Delaunay triangulation of a set of points in the plane is a set of triangles connecting the points satisfying an "empty circle" property: the circumcircle of each triangle does not contain any of the points. Free (no restrictions in the DEMO version)

NOTES:

The procedure involves

  1. Collects the points from a point theme (vertices) if the source is a polyline theme
  2. Cleans duplicate points
  3. Creates the TIN structure
  4. If the 3D polygon option is selected – the elevations from the source theme are transferred to the vertices of the 3D polygons ( triangles)

Notes:

  • To achieve best results when creating TIN from Polyline theme use Generalize or Densify in order to remove unnecessary points or add points to the long straight segments

Points Elevation - extracts the elevation of the points in a point theme from 3D Polygon theme - TIN created with the Build TIN procedure. Free (no restrictions in the DEMO version)

Create 3D Shapefile - extracts the elevations of the vertices of the features of a Polyline or Polygon theme and creates respectively PolylineZ or PolygonZ shapefile.Free (no restrictions in the DEMO version)

3D Analysis:

  • Analyze - derives MIN and MAX Elevation, Slope, Aspect, Hillshade and Mean Elevation for all the triangles in the selected TIN theme. Calculates statistics for the TIN. Check the appropriate Check Box to get the desired results. The results are stored in the polygon attribute table and can be used for classifying the TIN theme
    • Slope - identifies the slope, or maximum rate of elevation change for each triangle
    • Aspect - the values of the output field represent the compass direction of the aspect; 0 is true north, a 90 degree aspect is to the east etc. For  flat triangles (slope = 0) the value of -1 is assigned for the aspect
    • Hillshade - computes the brightness of each triangle based on a light source location. The user is requested to input:
      • azimuth - the azimuth angle of the light source. The azimuth is expressed in positive degrees from 0 to 360, measured clockwise from the north. The default is 315 degrees.
      • altitude - the altitude angle of the light source above the horizon. The altitude is expressed in positive degrees, with 0 degrees at the horizon and 90 degrees directly overhead. The default is 45 degrees.
  • Illuminate - applies brightness values to the TIN theme. For best results in displaying the TIN:
    1. Apply Graduated Color legend using MIN or MAX Elevation fields
    2. Illuminate faces using the Hillshade field as brightness theme
  • Show statistics - displays a dialog with surface statistics:
    • Min Elevation
    • Max Elevation
    • Mean Elevation
    • Min Slope
    • Max Slope
  • Interpolate contours - converts the TIN to a theme containing contours or isolines. The user is requested to input:
    • Base value - the contour from which to begin generation of contours.
    • Contour interval - Z value difference between adjacent contours in map units.

     

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ET Geoprocessing: All these functions are free (no restrictions in the DEMO version)

3004etgeo.jpg (13088 bytes)

bufdlg1.jpg (7573 bytes)

Transfer attributes:

Source

4032001TSource.jpg (3301 bytes)

Target

4032001TTarget.jpg (2027 bytes)

Overlay

4032001TTransfer.jpg (4601 bytes)

Point Distance from a polyline theme

4032001PointDistance.jpg (7029 bytes)

Reverse Geocode

3004revgeo.jpg (20108 bytes)

 

Buffer Theme - User selects a theme to be buffered. Introduces Buffer  Theme Dialog. The selected theme is buffered (if there is a selection only selected features are buffered ) with user specified constant buffer distance or the value from specified field. New buffer theme is created

Clip - The user selects theme to be clipped (polygon, polyline, point) and a polygon theme to clip with. Only selected features of the clip theme are used. The attributes are transferred according user defined attribute split rules. New theme is created

Batch Clip - The user selects themes to be clipped (polygon, polyline, point), directory to store clipped themes and a polygon theme to clip with. Only selected features of the clip theme are used. The attributes are transferred according user defined attribute split rules. The clipped themes will be named after the source themes.

Erase with polygon - The user selects theme to be erased (polygon, polyline, point) and a polygon theme to erase with. Only selected features of the erase theme are used. The attributes are transferred according user defined attribute split rules. New theme is created

Batch Erase - The user selects themes to be erased (polygon, polyline, point), directory to store resulting themes and a polygon theme to erase with. Only selected features of the erase theme are used. The attributes are transferred according user defined attribute split rules. The resulting themes will be named after the source themes.

Attributes from Polygon - The user selects target theme (polygon, polyline, point), source polygon theme, fields to copy and spatial relation (inside, center inside, intersect). For best result on polyline and polygon themes split first with the source polygon theme.

Transfer attributes from  - The user selects Target theme, Source theme, Fields to be transferred and transfer method depending on the type of the attribute

  • count (sum proportion) - census data

count = count_A * area_a  / area_A +  count_B * area_b / area_B

  • value (weighted average) - rainfall etc.

value = value_A * area_a  / (area_a + area_b) +  value_B * area_b / (area_a + area_b)

  • type (majority) - soil type etc

area_a  / (area_a + area_b) > area_b / (area_a + area_b)   ==> type_A

area_b / (area_a + area_b) > area_a  / (area_a + area_b)    ==> type_B

Point Distance  - TCalculates the distance from a point theme to another theme. The results are stored in a field added to the point theme's attribute table. If the source and target theme is the same - the result will be the distance from each point to the closest neighbouring point from the same theme.

Reverse Geocode - The user selects a polyline source theme and a point target theme. Introduces ET Reverse Geocode dialog.

The Type control panel allows to select an option for reverse geocoding:

  • General: allows a single attribute to be transferred from the polyline theme to the point theme. This attribute might be used as a link for copying more attributes from the polyline theme to the point theme. A single combo box will be available in the fields control panel for selection of a field to be used
  • Address (Double range): Calculates the address of a point from a street theme with Double range address (US Address) information. The fields control panel will contain five combo boxes allowing the user to chose Street Name, Left_Fom, Left_To, Right_From and Right_To fields. The street name will be transferred from the closest to each point street segment and the address value will be interpolated from the four address fields (taking into account the on which side of the street segment is the point). The user have to specify a search tolerance. The value of the tolerance is very important. The bigger the tolerance is the slower the calculations will be (for each point more street segment will be processed in order to find the closest one). If the tolerance is too small (no street segments closer than the tolerance to a point) no attributes will be transferred for this point.
  • Address (Single range): Calculates the address of a point from a street theme with Single range address information. The fields control panel will contain three combo boxes allowing the user to chose Street Name, From and To fields. The street name will be transferred from the closest to each point street segment and the address value will be interpolated from the two address field

NOTE: In order to avoid certain problems the address fields should be NUMERIC fields. If your address fields are from type STRING, you will have to create new address fields and calculate the address values from the original ones: [LF] = [L_F_ADD].AsNumber . Before calculating you will have to ensure that there are no values containing non numeric characters ( 31b, 24a etc.) or an empty string.

Example:

3004revgeo_ex.jpg (9233 bytes)

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ET Convert: All these functions are free (no restrictions in the DEMO version)

17062001ETConvert.jpg (19341 bytes) Polygon To Polyline - Introduces a List Box with the available in the current View Polygon Themes. Selected theme is converted to a Polyline theme.
  • The Polyline theme created will be dirty.
    • No intersections will be created
    • Common boundaries will be represented by double lines
    • Pseudo nodes will be present
  • The best order for cleaning the theme is (See Clean Dialog):
    • Intersect
    • Clean double lines
    • Clean pseudo nodes (with NONE option)
  • The Polygon's attributes can be kept in a Point theme.
    • A label point will be created in  each polygon
    • This Point theme can be used when building a polygon theme after editing the Polyline theme.

Polygon To Point - Converts Polygon theme to Point theme. An unique ID is assigned to each polygon in the source theme. The procedure checks for multi-part polygons and if present prompts the user to explode them. The ID is assigned to the points. Each point is assigned a position along the pertaining line.

PolygonM(Z) To Point - The same as Polygon To Point but keeps the M ( Z ) values in an attribute. Not available for ArcView 3.0

Polyline To Point - Converts polyline theme to point theme. All the vertices are converted to points. An unique ID is assigned to each polyline in the source theme. The procedure checks for multi-part polylines and if present prompts the user to explode them. The ID is assigned to the points. Each point is assigned a position along the pertaining line.

Polyline To Center Point - Converts polyline theme to point theme.For each polyline the center (middle) point is calculated and added to the point theme. An unique ID is assigned to each polyline in the source theme. The procedure checks for multi-part polylines and if present prompts the user to explode them. The ID is assigned to the points.

PolylineM(Z) To Point - The same as Polyline To Point but keeps the M ( Z ) values in an attribute. Not available for ArcView 3.0

Point To Polygon - Converts Point theme to Polygon theme. The user have to select an ID field which value defines the points to be used for creation of each polygon. An "order" field can be used to define the sequence in which the points define the polygon. If "order" field is not selected the sequence of digitizing of the points will be used

Point To Polyline - Converts Point theme to Polyline theme. The user have to select an ID field which value defines the points to be used for creation of each polyline. An "order" field can be used to define the sequence in which the points define the polyline. If "order" field is not selected the sequence of digitizing of the points will be used

Point To PolygonM(Z) - The same as Point To Polygon, but creates PolygonM(Z) theme. The user have to select a M (Z) field from the point theme's attribute table.  Not available for ArcView 3.0

Point To PolylineM(Z) - The same as Point To Polyline, but creates PolylineM(Z) theme. The user have to select a M (Z) field from the point theme's attribute table.  Not available for ArcView 3.0

Point To PointM(Z) - Creates PointM(Z) theme. The user have to select a M (Z) field from the point theme's attribute table.  Not available for ArcView 3.0

PointM(Z) To Point - Creates Point theme. Keeps the M ( Z ) values in an attribute. Not available for ArcView 3.0

ShapeM(Z) To Shape - Converts M(Z) theme (point, polygon,polyline) to plain point ,polygon, polyline theme. Not available for ArcView 3.0

<>Index <>ETPolygon<>ETPolyline<>ETCogo<>ETSurface<>ETGeoprocessing<>ETConvert<>ETMiscellaneous<>

ET Miscellaneous: All these functions are free (no restrictions in the DEMO version)

3004misc.jpg (13131 bytes)

29102000rotate.jpg (17355 bytes)

CONVEX HULL
TIN
THIESSEN POLYGON

EXAMPLE

1. Point collection

15012001th_points.jpg (3955 bytes)

2. Convex Hull

15012001th_hull.jpg (6649 bytes)

3. TIN

15012001th_tin.jpg (10854 bytes)

4. Perpendicular bisectors

15012001th_tin_th.jpg (12138 bytes)

5. Thiessen polygons

15012001th_th.jpg (9425 bytes)

6. Dissolved areas

15012001th_th_dis.jpg (7750 bytes)

Move Shapes - Moves (Translates) theme with user defined origin and destination points. The Dialog allows input of the Origin and Destination points, snapping them to features of the active theme or input of dX and dY values. Only selected features are moved (if no selection the procedure is applied to all features)

Rotate Shapes - Rotates a theme (applied to selected features) around user specified rotation point.

Explode - Converts Multi-Part features to Single- part. The attributes are transferred according user defined rules

Quick Clean - Cleans themes from NULL features. If the theme is of Polygon type cleans the  "Leaking" polygons. Cleans Polygons and Polylines from duplicate vertices that cause problems using some Avenue requests (SelectByPolygon, Intersects, ReturnIntersection etc.) and Select By Theme ArcView function.

Point Grid - Creates grid of points by user defined extent, type of grid

  • Square
  • Rectangle
  • Triangle

and distance between points

Convex hull - Convex hull is a polygonal area that is of smallest length and so that any pair of points within the area have the line segment between them contained entirely inside the area. Defining the convex Hull of a set of points is useful, for example in the case of enclosing the points, using a fence of shortest total length.

  1. Collects the points from a point theme (vertices) if the source is a polyline theme
  2. Clean duplicate points
  3. The user can chose to create multiple convex hull polygons (a field in theme’s attribute table required). Note: The polygons might overlap.
  4. Creates the Convex Hull polygon(s)

Thiessen Polygons - Thiessen (Voronoi) polygons define individual areas of influence around each of a set of points. Thiessen polygons are polygons whose boundaries define the area that is closest to each point relative to all other points. They are mathematically defined by the perpendicular bisectors of the lines between all points

Examples of use:

  • Defining trade areas
  • From a set of soil sampling points to define non overlapping polygons for each soil type

The procedure involves:

  1. Collects the points from a point theme (vertices if the source is a polyline theme)
  2. Clean duplicate points
  3. Generate Convex Hull
  4. Creates a TIN structure
  5. Generates perpendicular bisectors for each tin edge.
  6. Builds the Thiessen polygons theme
  7. Uses the convex hull as external boundary. The user has an option to buffer the convex hull polygon
  8. Attaches points attributes to the Thiessen polygons
  9. The user has an option to dissolve adjacent Thiessen polygons.

Notes:

  • To achieve best results when creating Thiessen Polygons from Polyline theme use Generalize or Densify (before running Thiessen Polygons procedure) in order to remove unnecessary points or add points to the long straight segments

Bivariate Legend

Applies brightness value from a field of the themes attribute table. The theme's legend must be  Graduated Color type. The best option is if the brightness field represents percentage (population growth, etc,). The values from the brightness field are spread between the user defined min and max brightness and applied to the current legend classification.

Draw Vector Grid

Introduces ET Draw Grid dialog. Identifies the view units and projection. Draws a grid with user specified interval in the view units. The extents of the grid might be typed in or calculated from the current view extent. The interval might be different in X an Y directions. The grid is drawn initially as graphic polylines, but when desired grid is drawn the graphics can be converted to a polyline shape file. The X and Y values are stored in a field in the theme's attribute table. The function will work in projected views, but the better option is to draw the grid in an unprojected view ==> create polyline theme ==> and then project it or copy it in a projected view.

3004grid.jpg (27083 bytes)

<>Index <>ETPolygon<>ETPolyline<>ETCogo<>ETSurface<>ETGeoprocessing<>ETConvert<>ETMiscellaneous<>

Discussion:

Fuzzy Tolerance:

This is an extremely small distance insignificant for the precision of your theme. It represents the minimum distance between Nodes. ET uses the Fuzzy Tolerance to clean the theme and to keep the Polyline topology. If nodes are found closer to each other than the Fuzzy Tolerance they are moved to form one node.  All the features with length smaller than this tolerance are considered redundant.  The default tolerance is 0.000001  * (W + H ) / 2: where W is the width and H is the Height of the the extent of the editing theme. If the editing theme has extents 1km/1km the default tolerance will be 1mm. The MIN tolerance the user can set is 0.000000001* (W + H ) / 2. The MAX tolerance can be   0.00001* (W + H ) / 2.
The smaller the value of Fuzzy Tolerance is, the bigger is the possibility of encountering PseudoPseudo Nodes. If the value of the tolerance is close to the MAX value some undesirable result might occur.

PseudoPseudo Node

ARC/INFO uses Fuzzy Tolerance for many procedures - Clean, Intersect etc., but it has not been implemented in ArcView. If you use ArcView standard split tool to split a Polyline and then analyze the nodes (you can use ET, ET-Demo or any other script or extension which does that) in many cases you will see picture like this:ppnodes1.jpg (9034 bytes). The definition of Pseudo node is "Pseudo nodes occur where a single line connects with itself  or where only two Polylines intersect.". Why then we have here Pseudo nodes where four Polylines intersect?   The answer is in the next picture. If you zoom in enough you will see something similar to this: ppnodes2.jpg (1705 bytes) Actually the four arcs do not intersect in one point. In fact two of them do not intersect at all. The distance between the two Pseudo nodes in my example is      4.58286*E-13. OK ArcView does not have problem with the lack of actual intersection. If you use Network Analyst to find the best route it will find it like this: ppnodes3.jpg (3304 bytes). This does not harm at all because the distance difference is almost nothing. However if you want to perform some cleaning exercise on your data it can cost you a LOT.

This phenomenon (most probably caused by ArcView's single precision numbers and the lack of Fuzzy Tolerance) I called PseudoPseudo Nodes and this is the term I'm using in ET. If you are sometimes frustrated from the speed of cleaning procedure, know that half of it is because of PseudoPseudo Nodes.

<>Index <>ETPolygon<>ETPolyline<>ETCogo<>ETSurface<>ETGeoprocessing<>ETConvert<>ETMiscellaneous<>

Dictionary

<>Index <>ETPolygon<>ETPolyline<>ETCogo<>ETSurface<>ETGeoprocessing<>ETConvert<>ETMiscellaneous<>


Contact : ianko@yebo.co.za


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