Load data into existing UN

[gis_KIWI4]

Hi Team, 

Hopefully someone can help here.

We want to add a bunch of attachments (Electric Junctions). These were created outside the UN. 
We have explored the append tool and as noted in a few other posts, it doesn't trigger an "edit" on the line it's placed on. 

Another tool that was mentioned was "Integrate", which changes the geometry of the lines. Undesirable. 

How would one go about adding data to the UN and ensure it's maintaining the topology? 

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Adding a Electric Junction via the Edit Tools creates a dirty area around the point feature and the line it's placed on. 

This is not observed when you add using append and even after snapping the point the line. 
This means they are not actually connected. 
This is proved by tracing the circuit, the attachment added using edit tools is selected while the other one is not. 

[JohnAlsup]

The imported junction feature is probably on a location on the line where there is no vertex.  When you create the junction using Pro, Pro actually edits the line and adds a vertex.

[PierreloupDucroix]

You won't be able to connect a point to a line without changing the line geometry, at least by creating a vertex.

What I have done for a similar case is :

- check and update if necessary the Z value of your point feature to have the same as your line feature

- snap points to your lines (arcpy.edit.Snap)

- split lines at points (arcpy.management.SplitLineAtPoint)

- dissolve lines with ORIG_FID dissolve field (arcpy.analysis.PairwiseDissolve)

- update line geometries with the new dissolved geom (arcpy.da.UpdateCursor)

[gis_KIWI4]

Thanks for the replies @JohnAlsup  @PierreloupDucroix 
So if I create the attachment, create a vertex and snap it to the vertex then I should expect the line and a point to be connected? 

[JohnAlsup · Accepted solution]

that should work.  If you have an existing Utility Network line feature, you would need to create the vertex on these lines, probably using some python code.  I would not use split line as that will change all the globalid's which could lead to other downstream problems if you have associations that these features participate in.

[PierreloupDucroix]

I agree with John, in my code, the split line at point and the dissolve steps generate secondary outputs (like in memory feature classes) that will be used at the end to update the UN line features' geometry.

You can also directly modify the lines' geom with python to add vertex

[gis_KIWI4]

Will give that a go.

[gis_KIWI4]

That works! 
We used FME to create the Electric Junction Object -> snap the Electric Junction Object to the line and add a vertex. 
Validated the geometry and it participates in the tracing 🙂 

PS - I couldn't find any geoprocessing tool to add the vertex and was too lazy to try the python way.