points disappear on failure to auto-complete sketch

378
2
02-28-2011 10:09 AM
MikeTischler
New Contributor II
hi,
I've been digitizing a fairly complex map, and end up using "auto-complete polygon" quite a bit.  I've run into a problem, and am wondering if I'm doing things properly. 

When I want to create a polygon that shares a boundary with an existing polygon, I use auto-complete and sketch the new polygon.  After clicking and creating up to a few hundred vertices, I create my last point by snapping to an existing polygon.  More than once the "finish sketch" hasn't finished properly, and my entire sketch to that point is then removed.  I end up re-digitizing the same polygon several times and wasting a LOT of time.  Is there a way to keep the sketch if the "finish sketch" doesn't complete?
Tags (2)
0 Kudos
2 Replies
MartinSheridan
New Contributor
Hey Guys,
I have figured this out.  My project included tracing multiple river islands and sandbars, and 9/10 times my painstaking sketches disappeared using the auto-complete freehand or polygon tools.  I noticed that the 1 polygon out of 10 that was created was a bit messy, i.e. the last line or point crossed the initial line or point where I started the shape.  It seems in order to complete a polygon using these toos, your finishing line has to cross over a portion of where you started.  Then hit F2 or right click and click "Finish Sketch."  Works fine now.  Good luck!


(see image below)


l[ATTACH=CONFIG]28425[/ATTACH]
0 Kudos
JohnSobetzer
Frequent Contributor
It's always safer to start and end an auto-complete polygon inside the polygon you are adding against, rather than relying on snapping.

I do wish that the auto-complete and split polygon tools sketch, when it fails, didn't just completely vanish thereby losing all the work that has been done.  I'd much rather simply get an error message indicating that the current sketch couldn't add/split, and then have my sketch back so that I could make it work.
0 Kudos