Select to view content in your preferred language

Problem with bezier curves

3028
2
06-22-2013 09:39 PM
MarioJáuregui_Zamudio
Emerging Contributor
Last night I was working on a polygon shapefile, I was using the freehand tool to draw them. Whenever I would finish a polygon It would save as several (but not too many at all) straight lines. I never saved the MXD file. Today I created a new one, with the same shapefiles, but whenever I create a polygon with the freehand tool, it does it as bezier curves wich later turn to straight lines (this time a whole lot of them). How can I go back?
Tags (2)
0 Kudos
2 Replies
RichardFairhurst
MVP Honored Contributor
Last night I was working on a polygon shapefile, I was using the freehand tool to draw them. Whenever I would finish a polygon It would save as several (but not too many at all) straight lines. I never saved the MXD file. Today I created a new one, with the same shapefiles, but whenever I create a polygon with the freehand tool, it does it as bezier curves wich later turn to straight lines (this time a whole lot of them). How can I go back?


Shapefiles are incapable of saving anything except straight line segments, so all curves are converted to small straight lines.  You must convert your polygon shapefile to a polygon feature class in a geodatabase if you are trying to save bezier curves.  According to the freehand help, bezier curves are always automatically created by the freehand tool to smooth curves, but when saved as a shapefile the curve will always break up into small line segments that meet the tolerance setting of the shapefile.  You may have been doing streaming instead when you created the previous drawing.  With streaming you can set options determining the interval distance for vertices to draw.
0 Kudos
MarioJáuregui_Zamudio
Emerging Contributor
Shapefiles are incapable of saving anything except straight line segments, so all curves are converted to small straight lines.  You must convert your polygon shapefile to a polygon feature class in a geodatabase if you are trying to save bezier curves.  According to the freehand help, bezier curves are always automatically created by the freehand tool to smooth curves, but when saved as a shapefile the curve will always break up into small line segments that meet the tolerance setting of the shapefile.  You may have been doing streaming instead when you created the previous drawing.  With streaming you can set options determining the interval distance for vertices to draw.


Yeah, I tried doing the streaming but is just not the same as the freehand tool. I wish I could remember how did I change the settings on the freehand tool to cancel the Bezier curves. Thank you very much for your help!
0 Kudos