Latest Contributions by RichardFairhurst

I hope you are fine. I have a simple query that can you please tell me the which tool is used for creating the surface in the attached image. The surface with yellow and red legend. Thanking in advance Those colors are created as the symbology properties of a layer.  I don't think any tool really exists to define symbology within ModelBuilder without first creating a layer outside of ModelBuilder that defines your desired symbology either in the map where the tool derives its data from or within a saved layer file.    There is an Apply Symbology From Layer tool that applies the symbology of an existing map layer or layer file to your output data during your geoprocessing operations. ... View more

I'm new here and I have a big problem with clipping - the same is appearing after intersect. I have a line which is going through one place to be cut in (polygon in the irregular shape)- when I do clip or interesect - it becames out as multiline. And when I explode it, it becames a many small lines, but I want them just to be 2 single parts, not so many single parts. The demonstration on the jpg Could anyone help me? I would be really grateful. Edit:  Reexamined your line data and realized the breaks are not due to the polygon shapes, but due to the lines crossing each other.  To fix that add a Dissolve at the end of your current process with the Multipart option unchecked.  Set the unique attribute case fields of the Dissolve to be equal to the FID of the original line and the FID of the originally intersected parcel (probably using Intersect in your prior steps is better to use than Clip, unless Clip also transfers polygon attributes to your lines like the Intersect tool does).  That should eliminate all line breaks due to intersection with other lines except self intersections of the original lines where they formed branches.  That is a special case requiring additional handling, but I won't cover that unless you confirm it affects your data. ... View more

I have a polyline feature class with around 5000 records. The task is to merge the two consecutive polylines into a polyline. So if i merge all the 5000 records i would have 2500 records(2500 lines)in that file. I need this to be done in Model Builder which is new for me..Kindly help me to complete this task.. I am not clear why only two consecutive lines would merge and not any amount of consecutive lines that share the same attribute and that connect.  If the latter is what you want to do then the Dissolve tool or Create Route Features tool will do everything you need.  Leaving the Multipart option of Dissolve unchecked for Dissolve or the Ignore Gaps option unchecked for the Create Route Features tool will ensure that only lines that touch end to end will merge together.  However, either of these tools will still merge every line that touches end to end and that shares the same attribute, not just 2 of those lines at a time. If on the other hand you are requiring that no more than 2 consecutive lines would merge, even when more lines are consecutively end to end with each other, that would have to be done using a Python script that does a very custom combination of tools and Python cursor operations.  Part of it could be designed in ModelBuilder, but the final step would require exporting the model to a Python script and inserting a Python cursor loop to do the final line pair merge.  That script could then be made into a geoprocessing script tool itself and brought back into ModelBuilder, but then you would have to design some additional scripting to make the output of that tool chain in ModelBuilder with other tools properly. So please first look at the Dissolve tool or Create Route Features tool and let me know if those tools do what you want to do or not, since they would be the simplest solution for use with ModelBuilder, before I suggest a work flow that requires significant customization to get the end product you want. ... View more

I have polygons that I need to label. The expression it looks something like [shapefile.name]&vbnewline&[shapefile.comment] However in the comment I have two values (A and B). I want to only display on map, comment value A and not comment value B. Is there a way to achieve this? I tried the SQL Query but that gets rid of the entire labeling (I still want the name to show up even if the polygon has comment value B). Thank you! Use the advanced label expression to set this up.  The expression would be designed using if then statements of either VBScript of Python to branch the label format according to the presence or absence of value A. Label classes could also apply as a way to define two label configurations, with one class haing the SQL limit the set to those features that have value A and another label class to use the opposite SQL with a label configure for the absence of value A. Typically the first choice works well enough for simple label configurations that only really involve string concatenation alternatives, while label classes usually are best for creating several very unique label formats for each label class group. ... View more

I am just trying to understand generally how setting behavior relates to a geodatabase. Did the topics of setting choices I mentioned mean anything to you?  If not pick a couple of those topics to explore in discussions here and also start looking up those terms in the help docs. What are your business rules for data integrity?  What have you been using up to this point (shapefiles I assume) and how has that been working for you?  What do you like or not like about the way your data is maintained?  You can basically make geodatabases as dumb as shapefiles, or you can invest in their peculiar features to enforce integrity and workflows. Other topics I could mention include configuring feature datasets (required for topology, feature linked annotation feature classes, and a few other things and helpful for organization, but they have several restrictions for inserting new data that can seriously trip you up if the data does not comply with the spatial reference of the feature dataset). How much of your data is coming from outside sources?  That can have a significant influence on your choices.  Anyway, the topic is huge and dependent on your business and your needs as far as the settings you choose to use and those you don't. ... View more

What are the reasons to set behavior in a geodatabase?  In other words, how would setting behavior impact on the editor's work? That is an overly broad question.  Are you concerned with domains, subtypes, and schema configurations (allow null values, required fields, default values, split rules, etc.)?  Are you considering using relationship classes or topology?  Are you looking at taking advantage of special data types, such as Network datasets?  Do you want to implement parcel fabrics?  Each of these settings can have an impact that can make an editor's life more difficult or easy and much of it depends on your business rules. ... View more

Will the tool actually split the line at every single location where it intersects with a point? The Integrate tool won't split the line at all, it just aligns the features, but it is one of the few tools that directly alters the source data without creating a new output.  That is why it is important to run Integrate on a copy of your data, so that you have your original as a backup if you configured the Integrate tool incorrectly. The Split Line at Point should split every line at every overlapping point if the overlap is within the search radius in a new feature class, but it won't alter the original line file.  If you are expecting the original line file to be altered, you cannot use that tool to do that directly.  You can only create a new output file and replace the original file with it.  However, it would be wiser to rename the original unsplit line file and keep it as a backup and then change the name of the split line output to take the place of the original lines rather than completely destroy the original unsplit lines (at least until you are absolutely positive the new lines are perfect and all that you will ever need going forward).  Only rarely do geoprocessing tools operate to make changes directly on the original source data itself, since, if any mistake was made in the set up or use of such tools, data recovery would be very difficult if not impossible. ... View more

Sorry for not been so clear. Basically I have two Feature Classes, one for points and one for liens. Some points intersect the lines. I want to run a script or tool that splits the line wherever the point intersects the lines (like valves on top of mains). I have tried the Split Lines at Points but it does not split the lines wherever the point intersect the lines.[ATTACH=CONFIG]24369[/ATTACH] So you have an Advanced license, which is good, since that gives you the most options. What was the search radius setting that you used?  Not specifying a radius would probably require eseentially perfect alignment of your points and lines, and nearly invisible imperfections in the alignment would result in lines not splitting.  You may also want to make a copy of your data and run the Integrate tool first to ensure the lines and points are fully snapped before trying the Split Lina at Point tool. ... View more

Hi- I'm trying to extract the coastline from a series of historic (hand drawn!) maps (I got the idea from NOAA). The maps are all scanned, rasterized (.tif files), georeferenced and correctly projected (NAD 1983), but I'm not sure what to do next! Essentially all I want from the maps is the division between land and water, I can discard all other information. I was thinking I'd begin with a classification, but that's just a guess and I don't even know if it will work with these sorts of files. I also saw something about an indicator raster. Any and all advice would be appreciated! Thanks. Emma I am not an expert in using the raster options of ArcMap, and more than likely that will be your best option, but I will let someone else with more experience describe how to use those techniques. However, if the boundaries of the two areas are distinctly drawn, either with a fairly think boundary when there are no fills or with solid fills of obviously different grey scale values on each side of a boundary, I have used photoshop to convert the image to grey scale, enhance the contrast, and do a trace using their trace tools.  The vectors created by the trace were saved from Photoshop to a supported CAD format that ArcMap could open.  The CAD file was brought in, georeferenced and converted to a line feature class with the CAD conversion tools.  I think that before I did the trace I first used the georeferencing tools to match up the image to my map, and actually did the trace on an exported georeferenced image from ArcMap rather than the original image itself. The conversion won't be perfect and some clean up to remove traced text objects and unwanted scanning artifacts will be needed, but it worked fairly well for me when I was converting scans of Specific Plan land use plans that depicted land use planning area boundaries.  I had to play around with the Photoshop trace tool settings and this technique is highly dependent on the quality of your originally scanned image (but probably most techniques are heavily affected by that, whichever way you go).  Most of the work was in deleting the traced text objects and doing a few line extensions to connect the boundaries where text got in the way.  Then the line set was converted to polygons and those polygons were checked again for correct boundaries.  Final clean up was done with the Split Polygon edit tools in a few cases. I'll be interested to hear about any workflows that relied on Arcmap's built in raster tools myself, but I hope this helps and provides an option that may work with your image. ... View more

Hi, any help is welcome�?� I need to split some lines where it intersects with points. I used the Split Lines at Points but the output is not what I expected. Thanks in advanced!! Your post is completely vague.  What did you expect that you did not get?  A picture of what you got and comments on what you don't like would help a lot. ... View more

Oh well as would be the case I spoke too soon.  Initially, it did finish but when I actually reviewed the results It had only calculated the coordinates for the first 1970 records (Start_X, Start_Y, End_X, End_Y) ????  So to check that result I tried to redo it but this time ArcMap CRASHED!!!  It asked if I wanted to send an error report to ESRI and I said yes, why not? Then comes the funny bit.... ...then would you believe it that Crashed also!!! [ATTACH=CONFIG]24354[/ATTACH] So really it is back to my original question ... how do I do this????? You have a corrupted point.  Probably it has no coordinate and is an empty shape.  That will fail.  Select everything that did not calculate, sort it on the objectID.  First try panning to the first record.  If it does not move the location, you have a corrupted point.  These points get created when you do not actually set the geometry of a point, but instead start entering attributes before the point ever got set (which will insert a record with empty geometry).  The same can happen with lines and polygons that have only attributes, but no geometry.  But lines and polygons are easier to find, because they always have lengths or perimeters of 0 length (points show no automatically created measurements to tell you that they are corrupt). If that is the case, deselect that first point.  Now try the calculation on the rest of that selection set.  If that works, you have confirmed that you have a corrupted point.  In any case there is no need to recalculate the points you already got coordinates assigned to for the X coordinate. Check geometry might also detect any corrupted points if it fails a second time. ... View more

Hi, I have a similar problem but I need to put the calculation of the coordinates (start and end of a line) into a model or script so it can be run on a regular basis. Any clues? It has to be done as a Python9_3 Field Calculation (at least at 10.0 and up) connected to a layer created with the Make Layer tool (not a feature class stored on disk, which is the normal output of most tools).  It is a simple calculation: !Shape.FirstPoint.X! - does the Start/From end X coordinate !Shape.FirstPoint.Y! - does the Start/From end Y coordinate !Shape.LastPoint.X! - does the End/To end X coordinate !Shape.LastPoint.Y! - does the End/To end Y coordinate M and Z can be substituted for X or Y above, and Centroid can be used instead of FirstPoint/LastPoint to get the midpoint of the line.  http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//00170000004m000000 ... View more

Hi there, Thank you very much for replying to my problem, much appreciated. I am using ArcGIS version 10.0. Is there a way of changing this environmental setting, as you proposed, in 10.0? Thanks Environmental settings are in all versions of desktop since geoprocessing first began, so it is in your version.  There is an option button at the bottom of every tool that says "Environments..."  (the buttons at the bottom of every tool are "OK", "Cancel", "Environments...", "Show Help>>/<<Hide Help", and "tool Help").  The option you need is seen when you press the Environments button and expand the Fields group and is called "Transfer field domain description".  Uncheck that option if you do not want the added fields. ... View more

I've been trying to dissolve a street file for a couple of days now, and it doesn't seem to respond. I've tried several different approaches to running it and none of them seem to work, so I'm thinking there's a bug with the geoprocessing tool itself. I originally tried to run it on a moderately large line feature class (roughly 1.3 million records) via a python script by splitting it up into regions. I dumped each region into a separate shapefile and it works for the majority, but then hangs when it gets towards the end of the file. I also tried running it on as few as 5000 records and let it run for more than 12 hours and it only says that it's dissolving, but gives no indication of status. I've tried running it with both a feature class and a shapefile as input and output, and it results in the same hung process. Has anyone else experienced this? I have never tried a file that large, but I have dissolved street polyline files with about 125K records in under 15 minutes, so your test with 5,000 records failing after that long indicates there is some kind of data corruption.  When you say it works for the majority in your region dissolves, I assume you mean they all look like they are dissolving based on the messages you see, but none actually dissolves in the end.  Is that correct?  Or do you mean that several regions actually dissolve but the regions you process last fail?  Also, does the tool ever stop processing on its own with the creation of an empty output, or do you always have to interrupt the processing due to it stalling out? Were these regions processed as exports to new files before dissolving or as dissolves of selection sets/definition queries of the original file? Try the repair geometry tools on your original data (make a backup) and if you have not already made a test on an exported subset, do the export of a small set of records (your 5,000 case) to a new feature class for a dissolve to determine if the file itself is the problem. I also assume other files unrelated to this street file dissolve for you.  If you haven't tested that you should.  A more widespread failure to dissolve than a single feature class and its derivatives would indicate that the problems possibly could be occurring in your ArcMap installation.  Anyway, it is far more likely to be the data source that is the problem and not the geoprocessing tool itself unless all attempts to dissolve fail regardless of the sources tried. Anyway, more information about the things you have tried and what the various results you have gotten have been would be useful. ... View more

If Closest always returns the closest then what's the point of One to Many relationship? Its purpose is for Intersect primarily, where multiple records are created.  Even with one-to-one and Intersect summaries of multiple records are produced rather than choosing a single record from the possible matches.  The tool works with groups the way you would expect.  If you had a group of individuals of different heights and I asked you for the height of the tallest you would report only one height value even if multiple people were that same height and at least one person in the group actually had to be that height.  If I asked for the average height of the group you would give me one value regardless of the number of individuals in the group and whether that height matched any specific individual or not (intersect-one-to-one) and if I asked for the list of heights you would give me a list (intersect-one-to-many).  The fact that one tool can be configured to answer each of these questions is actually very elegant. If I asked you for the list of the tallest in a group (closest-one-to-many) and did not specify a range of tallness you would normally produce a list of the tallest person in each group.  Technically you should list all individuals of a group that had the exact same height and were the tallest in the group, but it rarely happens in small groups (especially if the precision of the height measurements was extremely high). ... View more