Latest Contributions by MarkVolz

Hello, I have a new person who will be working on our parcels.  I set up a version for him which is a child of my qaqc version, and a grandchild of our default version.  He could start editing the parcels, but all the parcel construction tools were disabled. When I couldnt edit anything I decided to call technical support.  The person was helpful and thorough.  We checked the drivers, and the permissions, the services, etc.  After a while he rememberd that unlike other feature classes the parcel fabric can only be edited if it is the default version or a child of a default version.  Therefore editing on the grandchild of the default version would  not work. Feature request: Display a warning if we are trying to edit a parcel fabric that is not the default or a child of the default version, that is until it is possible to edit the parcel fabric using a grandchild version. Thanks ... View more

Hello, It would be very useful if there were tools to automate the construction of sections and quarter-quarter sections.  I usually spend more time working on these than drawing actual parcels.  I think for the most part this task could be solved mathmatically within the parcel fabric editor: Potential workflow: 1) A user clicks on section corners, quarter corners (if any), or any other GPS points that may make up the boundary of the section. 2) Next, ArcGIS prompts the user to see if is is a fractional section or not.  If the section is fractional then the user will enter in the fractional distances e.g.   17.5, 20, 20, 20.   These lines will be used to proportion the distances. 3) Based on the gps corners added, and additional fractional distances, ArcGIS will proportion distances, build the section, and quarter quarters. Thanks For sections not along ... View more

I would like an option to export table schemas to excel.  That would make it easier to compare two tables and verify if they have the same schema or not. For example: my_shapefile.shp  --> export schema to excel  -->my_shapefile_schema.xls Fieild Name,   Field Alias, Field Type, Field Size, Domain,   etc _____________________________________________________ PIN                , Parcel ID,   String,     11,    <null>, .... Thanks ... View more

It is difficult to follow or reproduce models if one of the tools in the model has been renamed.  For example if someone hands you a model and one of the tools was renamed to "Do some GIS Magic" then there is no way to really know for sure what the original tool was.  In this case was the tool really "Copy" or "Merge" or something else. Current system: Tools can be renamed, which hide the actual underlying functionally / name of the tool. Labels can be added to describe tool.  This is redundant to the rename functionality.  In addition labels can hover above other tools, which makes the model more ambiguous and difficult to follow. Requested change: Remove the rename functionality on tools and datasets. If a label is created then it should show INSIDE of the tool as an alias. Include a (longer) description field. Add a button on Model builder that allows users to toggle between tool names and the tool aliases (labels). Name Mode:  True tool and dataset names are shown.  Parameters (similar to what is already done in the yellow box) are shown when you hover over a tool. Alias Mode:  Tool and dataset labels are shown.  The longer description is shown when you hover over a tool. If a tool does not have a custom label, or description then the true tool name and description will be shown in alias mode. Rational: There will no longer be any silly long labels that might get placed over several tools. There will be no option for users to label a tool via renaming it.  Which is inconsistent with others that label a tool using "create label" It will be easier for coders to figure out what underlying tools are used in the model, which will make it easier to reproduce or fix a model. It will be easy to switch between labels and data names for those that sometimes like labels, but other times like to know the real names of the underlying tools and datasets. It will be easy for people who new users that only care about the labels...   They will not have to wonder why some people have labels that might speared over other tools. It will be easier for distributers.  They won’t need to have to worry about customizing the names of tools to cater to multiple clients that might prefer the tools to be renamed or not. ... View more

It woudl be useful if there was a central repository for Add-ins so that the Add-Ins are easy to find, similar to http://wordpress.org/plugins/ I have a couple useful add-ins and I have no idea where I got them from.  It would be nice to know what license they have (can they be shared), if they have been updated recently, if they are compatible with 10.2.1, and I would like to know if the add-in is still relevent for the new version of ArcGIS.   ... View more

It would be useful if there was a parcel workflow tool that would automatically create and name quarter quarters for the "standard" plss section.  A user would start by clicking on all the section corners, and if available any of the 1/4 corners.  The "Quarter Quarter builder" would then take the points and create each of the 16 quarter quarters in a given section. This would save a TON of time as users would not have to deal with calculation distances for breaklines, and drawing the boundary lines of the quarter quarters. Thanks ... View more

The parcel Fabric Editor should be more clear as to whether or not it is using as recorded, as measured, as fit, or as estimated* distances in the parcel fabric.. Using these definitions for distances: As recorded:  the legal distance on the plat. As measured: the actual distance measured by a surveyor. As fit: the distance of the parcel as it fits into the parcel fabric As estimated: a way of indicating that the distance on a line is a guess.  This would be a way of allowing a high accuracy on the direction of a line, while indicating that the actual distance is a guess.  This indicator might be used in legals that make a statement "then S 89-29-34 W to the center of the river" First, Currently when we add lines in the parcel detail windows there is only one distance that we can enter.  In addition to the measured distance it would be useful to include: 1)  the recorded distance and 2) indicate if the distance is guessed.  Which would be useful if to indicate cases where we are confident about the direction of a line, but not the true distance. Second, It would be nice if ESRI was more transparent about how some of the parcel creation tools work including but is not limited to duplicate, merge, and construct from parent tools.  It seems that sometimes the parcel tools will use the distances that were entered in the parent(s) parcel detail window, and other cases the tools use the distances as they fit in the fabric.  I think the latter is quite annoying.   If I construct from parent from two 100 by 100 foot parcels I expect the result to be 200 feet by 100 feet.  Not 199.76 by 100.24. Thanks ... View more

It would be nice if people could add labels in ArcGIS Explorer Desktop   ... View more

Hello, I would like to mosaic hundreds of pictures into a single dataset.  Each individual picture has a near black frame around the edge, and there is a significant overlap between each image.  Currently when I add all the images I cannot see everything because the frame on the top image hides portions of the images below it.  I need to find a way to automatically remove the frames.  I should mention these are black and white air photos. -The edges are not truly black, nor are they consistent so I cannot set a certain color to "No Data" -There are legitimate areas that are darker than the boarder.  Therefore I cannot remove a color darker than a certain threshold. -I cannot use a maximum function as the rasters are not perfectly georeferenced Possible thoughts: I created a shapefile that contains each raster boundary.  If there is an overlap could I automatically crop the raster image by a certain number of pixels?  This is the quickest method I can think of. Any other idea?s ... View more

Hello, The parcel editor examples assume that were working in a urban area where everything is plattet and nearly perfect.  It would be nice to see a better workflow on how to build parcels in rural areas where parcels are desribed using a mixture between cogo, and PLSS quarter quarters. Thanks ... View more