topic Re: How can I run Simplify Building and maintain shared edges between the polygons? in Geoprocessing Questions

How can I run Simplify Building and maintain shared edges between the polygons?

JulianRosser — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 11:36:07 GMT

I am trying to run Simplify Building on a coverage. I want to simplify the shape of buildings and I want to maintain the topology of the buildings (i.e. maintain shared edge between the polygons). I understand Simplify Building will do this for straight line shared walls (but not for more complex ones).

Simplify Building works on my Shapefiles but doesn't maintain the topology (as I might expect). However, when I run the Simplify Building on a coverage (I have built from the Shapefile, states the topology is defined and Topology Clean runs on it), I get the following error:

Executing: SimplifyBuilding C:\Users\ezzjfr\post_doc\LUCAS\building_test_data\notts_addressablebuildings\topology_test\fc_to_cover2 C:\Users\ezzjfr\post_doc\LUCAS\building_test_data\notts_addressablebuildings\topology_test\fc2cover2Simp 1 0 # NOT_CHECK

Start Time: Thu Dec 07 11:20:13 2017

ERROR 999999: Error executing function.

Failed to execute (SimplifyBuilding).

Failed at Thu Dec 07 11:20:13 2017 (Elapsed Time: 0.03 seconds)

How can I run Simplify Building and maintain shared edges between the polygons?

Re: How can I run Simplify Building and maintain shared edges between the polygons?

DanPatterson_Retired — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 11:40:49 GMT

have you tried it by converting to a featureclass in a geodatabase first?

This... http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/latest/tools/production-mapping-toolbox/generalize-shared-features.htm

also suggests a few other steps in the process like running Integrate and Repair geometry and you need Advanced Production Mapping of course

Re: How can I run Simplify Building and maintain shared edges between the polygons?

JulianRosser — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 14:48:33 GMT

Interesting. I've never come across the Production Mapping toolbox before, looks quite good, but I don't have a licence for it. The documentation makes it sounds like Simplify Building should do what I want though.

Yes I did try running on the a feature class in a geodatabase and it runs, but without maintaining the topology. To clarify some issues, there seems to be two tools named the same in the toolbox. One is:

tools/coverage-toolbox/simplify-building.htm

This one won't run, and returns ERROR 999999: Error executing function.

the other is in cartography toolbox:

Cartography -> Generalization -> Simplify Buildings

This one will run on a feature class but doesn't maintain shared edges (so building footprints that were connected can drift away from each other).

Re: How can I run Simplify Building and maintain shared edges between the polygons?

DanPatterson_Retired — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 15:23:53 GMT

Julian... you didn't comment on whether you tried Integrate... or Check or Repair Geometry in case there is some underlying geometry 'issue'

Re: How can I run Simplify Building and maintain shared edges between the polygons?

JulianRosser — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 13:46:51 GMT

Thanks for the previous response and my apologies for the slow reply...just found time to pick this up again. Running integrate didn't make any difference. After more digging, it appears that the "Coverage Toolbox" requires "ArcInfo Workstation" to be installed. I don't appear to have any allusion to this on my ArcGIS Desktop 10.3 installation and my system administrator doesn't think there is anything else to install. The current status of Workstation isn't really clear to me and most references to it are a good few years old. Is there somewhere on the ESRI that it can be downloaded from? It appears to be undergoing retirement, in which case what will happen to the Coverage ToolboX functionality? It seems to be left out of ArcGIS Pro