Measuring a line when drawing polygons

AudreyMichniak

I was wondering if there is a way to measure your polygon lines while creating your polygon. I work with creating buffers for wetlands and it would be helpful to be able to see the distance of each line while drawing my polygon. I see that at the bottom you can see Long/Lat and the drop-down arrow has options for different measurement units but when I click on them the units do not change. Wondering if anyone has figured out a solution.

JustinJohnston

I don't know if my ways are the best ways, but a couple thoughts. 

1. There is a buffer geoprocessing tool that works pretty great to make wetland buffers automagically. I use it all the time and highly recommend you give that a try in your workflows.  

 

2. For measurements, I often create a "Measurements" polyline feature class with symbology and labels.  I add a marker layer, click styles and select an arrow head, select "at extremeties" for placement, and offset by 3pts to pull the arrowheads in a bit. I usually use a light grey since I use aerial backgrounds often. For the labeling, I use this TEXT($feature.Shape_Length,'##.#') + " ft" for the label class so that I can get a nice length label in feet. Then when making measurements lines, I click the first end to start the feature, then I right click and choose , distance, direction, or distance and direction to draw the line.  After I make the measurements, I create the polygon I want by snapping to the ends of the line. When I make a map, I can just turn the measurements layer off so it doesn't show on a layout.  Note, I use feet because the projection of my layer is usually a state plane US Ft projection.  If you are using some other projection or units, adjust your labels accordingly.  

Cheers,

Justin