Flip lines so the line starts towards a feature

[SukhvirRehal]

Hi Guys,

I'm hoping someone can help me here.

Is there any way that I can flip line features so that the starting point of the line is starting at another feature (point feature)

I hope I'm making sense as I know my wording probably isn't correct.

ps. I'm using ArcGIS Editor 10.1

Thanks in advance for your help/advice.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

This can be done during an edit session for selected lines

  ArcGIS Help (10.2, 10.2.1, and 10.2.2)

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ArcGIS Help (10.2, 10.2.1, and 10.2.2)‌

[SukhvirRehal]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your reply.

The thing is this only allows me to do 1 line at a time & secondly, some line features already start at a feature and some don't.

As I have a lot of line features I was hoping there was a quicker way of doing this and checking to make sure all lines start at a feature?

Thanks

Sukh

[DuncanHornby]

You can interactively flip a polyline as described here. There is also a geo-processing tool.

[SukhvirRehal]

Hi Duncan,

Thanks for the links provided.

The real issue I have is that at not all lines are flipped the right way? some lines already start at a point feature but some don't.

Is there anything I can do to select the lines first that don't have their starting point at a feature and flip only those?

[DanPatterson_Retired]

I don't do much editing, but I would be surprised if you couldn't select several lines by holding the shift key and clicking then flipping...but as said..the last time I edited geometry was many years ago

[SukhvirRehal]

Hi dan,

You're right . I can turn on arrow heads and then select multiple lines buy visually selecting.

the only problem is that I have 1000s of lines and this is where I'm hoping to find a quicker solution.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

There isn't one...unless you have funds to hire an undergraduate assistant

[SukhvirRehal]

Ah well, that answers that then.

Thanks for your help guys.

[DuncanHornby · Accepted solution]

One approach could be this:

1. Extract the FROM node end of the line
2. Ensure that this point has the ID of the polyline
3. Run a select by location of those point features to your FROM node.
4. Using a relate of polyline ID in your node layer to the actual polyline layer, pass the selection back to the polylines
5. You now have a sub set of selected polylines whose FROM end is touching those features.
6. Run the flip tool.

As you "only" have ArcEditor you cannot use Feature Vertices To Points (Data Management)  tool to create the FROM nodes, you'll have to do a little bit more research, I suggest the code gallery or ArcScripts.