Amalgamating multiple lines into a single line

Question

Hi there,

I have 2 feature classes.  Both of them are pipelines.  One is fairly reliable (utility) and the other is very unreliable with lots of duplicate, but not coincident linework (eg_line) - see the attached image to get a better sense.  I need to derive a single feature class that incorporates both feature classes, but in a "cleaned up" way.

I was playing around with the 'intersect' tool, with a wide tolerance (50 meters), to reduce the eg_line feature class to a single line.  That works okay, because the data is crap.  That gets rid of single lines though (those without another line within 50-m), so I appended a duplicate set of lines to the same feature class before running it.  However, I can't use that tool with more than 1 feature class (i.e., both eg_line and utility) because there are features in one that are not in the other (i.e., some new pipelines in eg_line that are not in utility that will disappear because they don't intersect lines in utility)

I also tried the integrate tool, which also seems to work fairly well, except for one small problem - even if I put a rank 1 on "utility" and a rank 2 on "eg_line", "utility" still gets altered and I want to maintain that linework as is.  The integrate tool help says that you can use read-only features in the tool, which would help me push "eg_line" over to "utility" without altering "utility".  However, "utility" is not read-only data, and if I compress the data (it's a fgdb feature class), then the integrate tool craps out saying it cant alter that feature class.

So ... a few questions.

1. Is there another way to smash together a bunch of linework that I haven't thought of or don't know (i.e., to get rid of the obviously coincident linework in eg_line)?
2. Is there a way to make a feature class read only?
3. Is there a way, other than ranks, to make sure utility stays as is, and only eg_line is altered to be coincident with utility?

Thanks
Arc9.3

pipelines.PNG

Metrics_UnitConnections.png

Luci_Coleman_0-1762203691716.png

DarrenWiens2 · Answer

I suggest checking out Feature to Line. The features toolbox is like magic.

denisedavis · Answer

Hi there,

1. Is there another way to smash together a bunch of linework that I haven't thought of or don't know (i.e., to get rid of the obviously coincident linework in eg_line)?
2. Is there a way to make a feature class read only?
3. Is there a way, other than ranks, to make sure utility stays as is, and only eg_line is altered to be coincident with utility?

Thanks
Arc9.3

1) you can use the Load function in ArcCatalog to "smash" the lines together. You'll need to create a field that is common to both line features and then you may have to make sure the fields "point" to the right data as the Load wizard runs.
2) you can export the data you want to edit to a shapefile and make that the editable feature. 
3) same as 2