Cutting Polygons is causing Slivers (Gaps and Overlaps) for NO reason!

[LindsayReinhardt]

I am running Arc 9.2 Service Pack 6.  I am using the Cut Tool to cut smaller Polygons from a larger polygon and the MERGE tool to join polygons back together.


I have done this task thousands of times and never had any issues. However, as of this week, something very strange is happening.  I started with a perfect geodatabase, no topology errors. I performed a standard cut polygon task and topology errors are showing up all over the place. Even in surrounding polygons that I am not doing any work in.  When I try to correct these errors the topology edit tool won't let me correct them. Or it says they are corrected but the slivers and gaps still persist only they cannot be selected  no matter how tight I zoom in on them.

Has anyone else encountered this problem?  I have my snapping environment set so I know that I am snapping to edges and vertices. My only topology rules are "must not overlap" and "must not have gaps."

I have also tried exporting my current polygons as a new shapefile and creating a new geodatabase wondering if something was corrupt? Nothing I have tried, can solve this issue. 😞

[Anonymous User]

Hi,

   I notice the same problem in ArcGIS 9.3.1 SP2. Any idea?

Zakaria.

[JohnSobetzer]

I can see how cutting a polygon could introduce a gap or overlap at the site.  See http://www.ian-ko.com/resources/Topology_Problems_2.htm.  But why you would suddenly have a change of behavior or why validating the topology doesn't fix these, that's something I don't have a good answer for.  I do recall a project I had some time ago when I was cutting a shapefile road buffer polygon that was quite complex and abutted a very large number of polygons, and edits in one place caused gaps to form all along it in places.  I figured then it had something to do with precision and tolerances, but why a cut would force the whole polygon to "jump to a grid" or "clean to the tolerances" escaped me.  I think at that time I went to the source coverage and edited it instead.

[DrewKinney]

We are having the same issues as well.  Still can't find a fix other than create a new file db and load the feature class into it.  This seems to fix it temporarily.

[BenHutchinson]

What I really don't understand is why they don't have more staff answering questions around here. My question has also gone unanswered by any ESRI officials.