What's the best practise for assigning Z values when migrating to Utility Network?

Question

Our current GIS deployment is not Z-enabled and we were thinking of applying Z values to our features as we migrate them to Utility Network. Can you advise us please on how to accomplish that? We’d love to hear what other users are doing in that regard.

I’m guessing that shape_operations.py which is provided by ESRI - as one of two scripts in the migration package - could be leveraged to do this. But I searched and didn’t find any documentation on the intended use of this script.

Also, note that our business process involves sometimes having Proposed status features coincident with To Be Abandoned status features of the same feature class. We have devised a draft plan to resolve this by ensuring they have different Z values. Our plan involves doing this initially in the process of migrating our features to UN.

ducroix_magis · Answer

Hi,

Did you find how to use the shape_operations.py functions during the data loading process ?

I understand how we can use the base.py functions in a workbook in the 'expression' column, but I don't think we can use a geometry function there since we don't have access to the shape field...

regards

Jens_Dalsgaard · Answer

Editing shapes in itself is not that hard. Doing it for utility network enabled features though imply a number of challenges so as to avoid stacked junctions, duplicate vertices, self-intersecting lines, etc.

Do not under estimate the challenges 🙂

Yet, you are not alone in having this challenge. It would be awesome if Esri would give some input on proposed approach.

That said, I would start by getting inspired by this link:

https://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/latest/tools/3d-analyst-toolbox/how-interpolate-shape-works.htm

Looking forwarding to following your learnings here.🙂

Best regards

Jens Dalsgaard