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Adding Layers to a map

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02-18-2011 06:08 AM
PatMoore
Deactivated User
Hi All,

I work for a Fire Department.  I created 3 new layers for our district map-one for high hazard locations; one for moderate hazard locations, and one for low hazard locations.  However, when I have just one of any layer turned on-all of the hazard locations show on the map (from our original feature "Target_hazards").  I know I'm forgetting to do something easy so each hazard layer doesn't show all the same hazard locations but I can't figure out what it is.  Any ideas?
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2 Replies
JohnSobetzer
Honored Contributor
It depends on how you created your 3 layers.  If in the original you selected one hazard group and exported it to a new dataset, then it should only hold those records.  Same for the other two.  Then they shouldn't each display all the locations.

If you instead added your original in 3 times, and then used a definition query to limit each layer to a specific hazard group, then that should work too, as long as you keep the definition query and the underlying field being defined stays the same.

If you used the Create Layer from Selected Features, and used it three times with different selections to create three different hazard layers, that should work, but every once in awhile something causes it to fail, and the selection is lost and it displays all the records.

Having said all this, I am continually amazed sometimes by how often ArcMap seems to cache information in some unknown location, and refuse to update the display.  I've had to close projects and reopen them, and sometimes that fails and I have to copy and then remove the layer, close the project and reopen it, and then paste the layer, and most recently I had to do this without using copy and paste to do this, but add it fresh and re symbolize, define, etc. it.  Crazy.
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TiffanyPuett
Frequent Contributor
Another note: try recalculating the spatial index.  Whenever a layer is updated with many new features and you zoom in and can't see them, chances are you need to do this.
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