Latest Contributions by JohnSobetzer

You might look at the Soil Data Viewer. ... View more

The offset may be the cause of drawing errors.  If you can make an acceptable symbol without it you might try that.  If not you might try representations.  You might look at http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/2008/02/22/a-quick-clean-method-for-insetting-polygon-outlines/ ... View more

To get attributes to come over with the shapes in a copy and paste, there must be an exact match of the field names in the copied from and pasted into layers.   Different field types or lengths can also be a problem.  If you don't have a good match you will have to add fields with those exact names to the layer to be copied, use the calculator to fill them from your existing fields, and then copy and paste.  Alternately, if you don't mind creating a new layer with the fields of both layers in it you can use the merge tool on selected records. ... View more

This isn't an answer, just a possible workaround.  Change your simple lines to cartographic and see if that works; and if not do the same for the fill as well.  Simple are fast but sometimes in complex situations they don't display right. ... View more

You might start over removing all the other associated files, including the pyramid files, leaving only the raster.   Start a new project.  Georeference the raster in the coordinate system the map was made in.  Rectify that and use that raster.  Then if you want build pyramids, change the coordinate system of the data frame, project it to a new coordinate system, etc. ... View more

There is no magic checkbox; you have instead run into a long standing problem for many users, sometimes on a hit or miss basis.  There are numerous workarounds such as using the print to pdf as suggested.  There are several good and free pdf printers.  Another option that preserves the layers and georeferencing information involves copying and pasting the table from Excel but even that isn't perfect.  So we often use the table to create a stamp and add it in Acrobat to the pdf but you unfortunately don't have that option. ... View more

I used to do this all the time with DSMapbook and still do on my 9.3.1.  It would be a very nice addition to DDP. One workaround is to disable the DDP, export to pdf and then re-enable it.  But that doesn't go well if one has page definitions, one of the great things about DDP.  If one has Adobe Acrobat one can export to eps and then open it in Adobe to convert it to a pdf without rasterization, but that loses the pdf layers and georeferencing.  There was some comment that hinted 10.1 would allow DDP to export to bookmarks but I haven't seen that and don't know what it might lose (e.g. page definitions). ... View more

Drewsky: Thank you! The reasons for the prior failures made sense; it fit with the odd results I kept getting. I should note when I tried copying and pasting the code you successfully used, I got this error: Parsing error IndentationError: expected an indented block (line 6) So based on some earlier code I got from ESRI I indented that and subsequent lines and then added an unindented line with just these words: del mxd.  It worked.  I'd copy and paste the code into here but the lines don't indent properly and because one of them wordwraps and that seems to cause problems.  I don't know how to avoid that; it's a pain in the butt.  I'd like to be able to copy and paste code out of a text file using notebook, but that's tricky. The upshot is that in 10.1 it produced a properly georeferenced tif, although a very low quality one given the 1024 x 1024 H & W and 48.  As you suggested the actual columns and rows were not 1024 x 1024 but 1024 x 983.  I increased them to 9306 x 9306 and 300 and got just what I wanted. Since I wasn't the original poster I can't say answered, but great job. ... View more

The clip probably failed since it would use the entire extent of the clipping dataset.  As to why Hawth's tools failed I can't say but if you go to the help you will see some of the limits on naming.  If you can't get that to work you could try one of the ArcGIS analysis overlay tools, the availability of which hinge on your license level but the Intersect tool should be in all of them.  Be sure to recalculate lengths afterwards if you are using shapefiles.  You may need to export the results to an pivot table,  use ArcGIS's summarize, or use other means as part of your analysis but the splitting and attributing will be done in the overlay. ... View more

Google on geopdf to geotiff and you will find some useful information.  I can't vouch for any of these. From my brief review of the results Global Mapper is a paid option. There is a military extension which is unavailable to the general public.  See http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/feduc08/papers/esri_fed_uc_army_geopdf_project.pdf There is an inexpensive program to do the conversion called G-Raster which started out to make USGS topos available to Garmin GPS.  See http://freegeographytools.com/2011/cheap-geopdf-to-geotiff-converter-for-garmin-custom-map-imagery. GDAL 1.8 and later supposedly provides the ability to use geopdfs by rasterizing using the georeferencing information.  See http://www.gdal.org/frmt_pdf.html.  There are even plugins to make this easier. Avenza extension for use in Illustrator; an expensive approach.  See http://www.cartotalk.com/index.php?showtopic=7286&hl=geopdf TerraGo geopdf toolbar and extension for use in ArcGIS, another expensive approach. I found the following interesting reading, coming from the USGS and specifically addressing the issue of using their geopdf topos as geotiffs in GIS programs: Nevertheless, displaying a symbolized quadrangle map in a GIS environment can be useful for many things. Below are some partial solutions to the problem of importing a US Topo into GIS software. The USGS expects that more and better solutions will become available as the US Topo program grows and software developers see opportunities in the product. There are historical analogies to this situation in other USGS products. In 1994 the USGS decided to distribute digital raster graphics (DRGs) in GeoTIFF, even though it was a new and unimplemented format. When the first DRGs were created in 1995 hardly any consumer software, including the major commercial GISs, could take advantage of the geospatial tags. By creating over 50,000 public domain GeoTIFF maps, the USGS helped drive the acceptance and widespread implementation of the format. ... View more

I've deleted the rrd files in the past when they accidentally showed up and had no problem doing that. ... View more

Possible options for Excel 2010 to save as dbf include: 1. When installing it on an existing machine, keep the 2003 version as well.  They seem to work together just fine.  I know this is an option with a site license, it comes up in the install process making it relatively easy to do. 2. Buy and install the SaveAsDBF add in.  Third party; I don't know how good it is.  See http://thexlwiz.blogspot.com/ 3. Check this out from Microsoft's support pages for a VBA method: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2007-customize/save-as-dbf-in-excel-2007/1a4c2f65-b560-4183-8de1-1cf275c42c38. 4. Use Access as suggested to convert the xlsx into a dbf. An easier solution is to install and use the spreadsheet program in Libre Office or Open Office for dbfs.  Both are free open source office suites. One should never sort or mess with any shape or index field when editing a dbf of a shapefile.  We make copies of the shapefile, and edit the dbf in one of them and test the result before making it the current one.  Excel is not a good way to add text fields, however, unless you don't mind having them 254 wide.  We add the field first in ArcMap and then populate the fields in Excel. ... View more

I'm probably missing something and if so I apologize but it looks like you have two different "snap" issues.  In the case of manual editing with lines, if you are adding to a line with the sketch tool you need to have The Edit Sketch box in the snapping environment checked to get it to snap to itself, but if you are selecting and moving a pre-existing vertice then up in the Layer window you need to have your layer's Vertex or End box's checked.  If the case of automatic cleanup, you might consider using the Integrate tool, which functions a bit like the coverage clean in terms of making vertice's coincident.  Do it on a copy since the changes are made in the layer instead of producing a new one, and you may want to play around with different tolerances to get your vertices to "snap" without moving others too much.  One other thought, there are snap, sticky move and tolerance settings that affect your work, and if one of them is set large you have to move your vertice beyond that tolerance to get it to move.  The Editor - Options settings for snap and sticky move are in pixels and hence how closely you are zoomed in can affect your snap/sticky "distance". ... View more

From ESRI: If you delete the .aux.xml file, you will lose all the information stored within it, including the transformation, statistics, and histogram information. Also see http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#//009t00000027000000 ... View more

I like the suggestion.  It is one of the options I've considered and tested, and it should work well with NF polygons that are adjacent and rather "compact" in shape. It does have the problem you recognized, however, where it overlaps in the middle or outer parts of the buffer, and/or if the NF area has long and/or oddly shaped extensions, particularly if they extend outside the buffer quite a bit.  It requires a bit of prep work too to select and choose the merged items, and perhaps cut them up.   Still, it might be a part of a semi automated approach depending on how many situations fit its requirement.  Thanks. ... View more