Latest Contributions by JohnSobetzer

I've never used it but I just came across a geoprocessing script gallery entry called Spatial Join By Attribute Matching. http://resources.arcgis.com/gallery/file/geoprocessing/details?entryID=3B5CA22E-1422-2418-A0FD-4B8FA3BCC705 ... View more

You might run a spatial join of your polygons to the applications as points.  Check out your options but one of them is a count field showing how many points fall within it. You might instead run an overlay of the points with the polygons and then dump the results into a pivot table for analysis or do an attribute join to get the results added back to the polygons and then analyze those results. ... View more

I don't know why the Excel change doesn't stick. If you have ETGeowizards available use it to change column order.  XTools may be able to do the same.  If not you can create a blank dataset with the fields in the order you want and then copy and paste the records from your current table into it.  Or you can add temporary fields, use the calculator to copy data into them, reorder the fields you will keep by deleting and adding, then copy the data from the temp fields back into the reordered fields and delete the temp. ... View more

I can see how cutting a polygon could introduce a gap or overlap at the site.  See http://www.ian-ko.com/resources/Topology_Problems_2.htm.  But why you would suddenly have a change of behavior or why validating the topology doesn't fix these, that's something I don't have a good answer for.  I do recall a project I had some time ago when I was cutting a shapefile road buffer polygon that was quite complex and abutted a very large number of polygons, and edits in one place caused gaps to form all along it in places.  I figured then it had something to do with precision and tolerances, but why a cut would force the whole polygon to "jump to a grid" or "clean to the tolerances" escaped me.  I think at that time I went to the source coverage and edited it instead. ... View more

I misunderstood what your problem was.  I thought it was topological slivers or "debris". If you have ETGeowizards You might take the results of your negative buffer and use the global snap on it to your original polys.  You might try different distances.  It isn't one of the free tools, however, and I don't know if you can find something equivalent. ... View more

That's a lot of work.  Sometimes manual work is required but if you can accept some minor vertice moves an automated process can do a lot.  What attributes did you lose when you used the Integrate or Eliminate tools? Ideally, there would be a batch topology fix for gaps and overlaps but I don't know of any.  Maybe I missed that and someone can point us to it. I like to use ETGeowizard's clean and eliminate tools when I'm given a topologically messy polygon set, but these aren't the free tools.  Since you have ArcInfo you could use the Feature to Line and Point tools, then Feature to Polygon using the points for attributes.  It would fill in all the gaps and the overlaps would become their own polygons, both of which would lack attributes. (Well, it is possible a point would get into a sliver rather than the "home" polygon so you would have to check for that.)  Then run an Eliminate, but check the results; you may have to vary the tolerance to get enough eliminated without unacceptable vertice movement. ... View more

You might: 1. run a repair geometry (after saving a backup). 2. run a clean 3. if you only have a few of these you probably could select them in an edit session, modify feature and delete the vertices. 4. if have ArcInfo use feature to lines and if there are any "crack" lines delete them, then run feature to polygon. ... View more

I haven't tried the toolbox with 9x.  I use GPS Trackmaker and/or DNR Garmin; free and fast and easy to use programs to do this conversion.  Just open (and they open fast) and save. What ArcGIS needs is a simple right click on the layer and export to gpx functionality for that conversion, and add gpx the same as a shapefile in the other direction.  If QGIS can do it certainly ArcGIS should. ... View more

Not that these are what you are looking for but you might check out: http://resources.arcgis.com/gallery/file/java/details?entryID=D1ACA121-1422-2418-A040-77C26518328D  (Load GPX Data) which points to the following http://resources.arcgis.com/gallery/video/java/details?entryID=E52160B6-1422-2418-88FD-97CAA1EFA276 http://resources.arcgis.com/gallery/file/geoprocessing/details?entryID=F80CC3AD-1422-2418-A046-0EF92028D0FB  (Feature class to GPX) http://resources.arcgis.com/gallery/file/map-templates/details?entryID=BC061D5E-1422-2418-7FCE-CC0FBB0C0825 (convert GPS including GPX to shapefiles) DNR Garmin can work in the ArcMap environment up to 9x via a toolbar. It is being extensively rewritten to be open source and perhaps as part of that it will be made to work in 10 too. Also found this: http://resources.arcgis.com/gallery/file/java/details?entryID=6C8ED156-1422-2418-346C-A8CCC2AEF333 (GPX viewer) ... View more

Most of the drgs I work with have a 255 color symbology so I can only suggest some options. First, if you have an rgb drg that displays properly, can you use the import symbolgy from it to fix the one that is displaying improperly?  If that works save the "fixed" drg as a layer file for future use. Second, if that doesn't work can you use the display background value or no data value as no color to at least get rid of the black?  If so maybe you can see if displaying it as blue might work although that may affect too many areas? Third, if that doesn't work can you get a hold of Photoshop (I don't know if PhotoElements works) and convert it to an indexed color raster there and then manually symbolize? Fourth, and what I would first try to do, is download a drg from the state GIS site which usually the 255 indexed color (only 12 are used in most cases).  If not you can an rgb but good looking one from US DataGateway for your county.  You can even use the topo from ArcGIS Online. ... View more

If you add the feature class to a new project without any symbology or definition queries, does it still display odd behavior?  If so you might make a copy of it, say in another GDB, and then run a repair geometry on the copy and see if that fixes things.  If it does you can use the repaired feature class but I'd suggest making a copy for backup, and do so after every edit session. ... View more

You could turn on snapping, set your edit task to autocomplete polygons, select all of your polygons and then use the trace tool to go around the mass, switching to the regular sketch tool to jump across the gaps with snapping, and then finish.  You may have to go back to delete some pockets that you don't want filled.  Or you can manually use the sketch tool to jump across each end gaps and fill it in, with those that are open at two ends requiring you to plug in one end first. ... View more

We have found that the best way to get Excel data to display properly in ArcMap is to copy and paste it.  I think you would find this is the most common proposed solution on the forums to a recurring issue.  Unfortunately if we export to pdf that doesn't always work. The table may not display completely for instance in the pdf.  It looks great in ArcMap.  So since we have Adobe Acrobat, we have found printing to pdf often works (although that doesn't produce layers and sometimes messes up something else), but the only sure way is to create stamps and add them to the pdfs after they were exported.  Clumsy. ... View more

You might note there is this which might help someday in the future: #NIM064840 (In batch processing on any tool the output names should be populated automatically using the input names). ... View more

If the dangles' gaps are smaller than an acceptable tolerance, or at least most are, you might run an Integrate.  There are some Arcscripts that got rid of dangles, like the Topology Support Tools, (I've never used it), which may or may not work in 10.  ETGeowizards has a wizard for getting rid of dangle but it is not one of the free tools.  Then there is the manually breaking up a layer by selecting sections of the lines and fixing the dangles if that gets you under the mysterious limit before the software fails. ... View more