Add Freehand Drawing Mode for Lines and Polygons in ArcGIS Field Maps

AntónioSantos21

I am a geologist who uses ArcGIS Field Maps extensively for geological field mapping.

When mapping geological contacts, landslides, alteration zones, faults and other natural features, these rarely follow straight segments. At the moment, Field Maps requires creating lines and polygons by placing individual vertices, which makes capturing natural shapes slower and often produces angular geometries.

I would like Field Maps to include an optional Freehand Drawing mode that allows users to draw lines and polygon boundaries continuously with a finger or stylus while the application automatically creates the necessary vertices.

This would provide several benefits:

• Faster field mapping;
• More realistic representation of natural features;
• Reduced need to edit and smooth geometries later in ArcGIS Pro;
• A more intuitive drawing experience when following irregular boundaries.

Although this feature would be especially valuable for geological mapping, it would also benefit many other field workflows such as environmental surveys, habitat mapping, forestry, agriculture, archaeology, and land management.

SarahSaint-Ruth

Thanks for sharing your idea.

We've identified this as a duplicate of an existing idea and are closing it so that community feedback remains consolidated in one location. Keeping related requests together helps ensure the product team has the clearest view of customer interest and use cases. Whilst the original idea states polygons we are tracking it for both polygons and lines.

Please continue the conversation here:
Original idea: Enable freehand polygon drawing

We appreciate your input and encourage you to add any additional context or examples to the original post.