how to close small gaps in a river network

[MartinHvidberg]

It seems to me that this should be a quite simple challenge.

I have a feature class 'River'. Unfortunately it was digitized without much attention to snapping, therefore it has many small gaps, typically less that 1 meter. In the very old days of Arc/Info a simple 'snap' command would have fixed this quickly ... So I assumed it to be equally simple in ArcMap 10.3

I found the tool 'Snap (Editing)' but it doesn't seem to do anything.

What is the easiest way to close many small gaps like this.

/Martin

[SepheFox · Accepted solution]

Hi Martin, if the snap tool in the editing toolbox didn't work for you, this would probably be best achieved by setting up topology rules for your geodatabase.

You've probably read up on the snap tool, but there are settings you can play with that might make it work Apparently it depends on Object ID order:

ArcGIS Help 10.1

You can read about setting up topology here:

ArcGIS Desktop and I have also attached a poster that explains the different rules available.

[MartinHvidberg]

I didn't consider classic topology at first, since data is in a versioned enterprise sde (Esri classic topology won't work with versioned databases). But I guess it's a good solution, if I make a 'check out replica' it should work smoothly.

Thanks

M

[SepheFox]

Hi Martin, I cam up with another suggestions. The Extend Line tool in the Editing Toolbox would probably work great for this...

Extend line

[DuncanHornby]

Interesting tool, forgot this existed!

Got interested in it and I did a little exploring of this and I don't think this tool will be useful in this case as the tool only extends lines that are perpendicular to the line its extending to. If the gaps in his river are between u/s and d/s polylines (Martin never says where they are) then this tool will not generate the expected results as the ends with be parallel.

If he uses this to join a tributary to a main stem then it should work but it does not introduce a node so he will need to be doing that afterwards.

Still I can see this being a useful tool for other types of processing.

[PaulLohr]

For anyone who comes up against this same issue, the Integrate tool may help. It is in with the geoprocessing tools.

Unclosed parallel lines are more challenging.