Latest Contributions by RichardFairhurst

Ok guys, i just see i got some very comprehensive answers, thanks for that. But i got to confess I was only telling you the half of the truth. So may I can ask you how you would solve this task: [ATTACH=CONFIG]0[/ATTACH] Actually it is not about creating a whole drainage network as one, but to set up so-called "habitat patches" for fish. The red line is a main river stretch  and the blue line represents a part from a tributary (as mentioned in my first thread, tributaries and the main segment are  2 different shpfiles. The grey points are impassable barriers for fish, so shortly speaking, every habitat is representing an area that delineates a freely moveable river habitat which will end at any impassable barrier. OK so now how would you create a single habitat patch (uniform ID) consisting of tributary (blue) and main stretch(red) out of the two different shapefiles. Please be so kind to describe it in a manner so that an arcgis newcomer such as me will be able to reproduce it. Many thanks for your answers so far. I can see whether I am able to solve this problem with your information already provided. I will let you know if it works. Thanks, Wolf Well that is a more complicated problem.  Ultimately you want the original line sets merged into one file, and in addition to remaining split at the rivers and tributaries, you want them divided at the barriers.  So here is the workflow I would try: 1. Add a field to store an attribute distinguishing the two line types (create that field on the main rivers first and assign it a value meaning rivers and then merge the tributaries in and select the null values or 0 values for that field and calculate a value representing the tributaries). 2.  Merge the two line sets together with the merge tool as mentioned and do the necessary tributary attribute selection and attribute calculation. 3.  You may want to make sure your lines have true connectivity, and might (on a copy of your merged file) use the Integrate tool to get snapping of lines to occur.  4. Use the Split Line at Points tool to break your lines using the barrier points (requires an Advance license).  If you do not have an advanced license, then you would need to break the lines some other way at the barriers.  I came come up with an alternative to that tool given time, but it is not an easy tool to replace. 5.  Run the Buffer tool with a small buffer to generate polygons around your lines. 6. Do Dissolve on these buffers using the single part feature option (This would not work for dissolving branching lines into one feature, but does work for merging branching polygons into one feature). 7. Now do a buffer that is only slightly larger than the one you did for your lines on the barrier points. 8. Use the Union Tool on the line buffers and point buffers.  http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//00080000000s000000 9. Select by Attribute and delete all polygons in the Union where the FID of the point buffers is greater than -1 and delete them. 10. Use the Multi-part to Single-Part tool to make sure the buffers are separated at the boundary point locations.  11. Use the Spatial Join tool using the One-To-Many option on the lines that were split using the Split at Points tool at step 4. Now you should have lines that have a buffer FID that ensures those lines could all be connected together without crossing a barrier (regardless of whether they were a tributary or river).  The buffer FID represents your habitat patch ID value that associates all lines that have the same habitat patch accessibility level for your fish.  Additionally these lines still can be colored separately as rivers or tributaries based on the attribute you added at step 1. If you want to Dissolve the lines into a single line feature (with no distinction in rivers and tributaries) use the Dissolve tool or Create Route tool on just the Buffer FID field value.  If you want rivers dissolved separately from tributaries use the Dissolve tool on the habitat patch buffer FID and the attribute you added at step 1.  Or create a text field and concatenate these two values together as a Route ID for the Create Route Feature tool.  Any of these dissolves or routes will lose any river names of the original lines and will only be useful for making it easier to select these habitat patches. ... View more

I am just trying it in ArcMap now. Couple of questions. Thanks. As the sample layer, I have 16 polygons[ATTACH=CONFIG]24172[/ATTACH], then the result of the step 3 spatial join has 63[ATTACH=CONFIG]24173[/ATTACH] For step 4, I found every polygons in the result match the condition "where the Owner name of the original polygon is the same as the owner name of the dissolved polygon"[ATTACH=CONFIG]24174[/ATTACH]Then, follow your step, this is the final result[ATTACH=CONFIG]24175[/ATTACH]The selected are only one feature, but I don't want the gap between them. Is there any steps I went wrong? I really appreciate your help! You did nothing wrong.  That is the result I was instructing you to achieve.  I did not realize you wanted the gap to be filled, since I thought you wanted the output to look like the picture you first attached.  To do that you would not do the steps I listed previously. The only tool that does what you want is the Aggregate Polygons tool, but you have to have ArcGIS 10.1 and an Advanced license to use that tool.  Additionally that tool does not respect attributes, it simply fills in the gap of every polygon it is given within the buffer tolerance specified.  So to use that tool you have to create an iterator to select each set of polygons with the same owner name, run the Aggregate tool, calculate the owner name into the output, and then append each output together to get a feature class of all names.  The iterator will crash after about 2,000 iterations, so if that happens you have to use definition queries to filter to greater than the last owner that was appended and restart the tool.  A summary of the tool steps you would have to use and a picture of an example model layout is attached. The tools are: 1. Create a variable called String that is defined as "%Value%" (the current iterator value) 2. Create an Iterator on your owner name field. (You would first have to concatenate all names into a single field if there are multiple fields used to store the full owner name). 3. Aggregate Polygons tool.  Use the orthogonal option for parcels. 4. Add the owner name field to the Aggregate Polygon output 5. Make Feature Layer 6. Calculate field using %String% as the expression (the current iterator owner name value formatted as a String). 7. Append to a feature class that just has the polygon shape type and the same spatial reference and owner name field as the output of step 4. The tool has a problem with bezier curves, so some simplification to line segments will be required if you have that type of geometry.  It also takes approximately 10 seconds per parcel set, so it is a slow process compared to tools like dissolve. ... View more