Editing Coverages in ArcEdit

1
Editing Coverages in ArcEdit
2
The Six Basic ARCEDIT Steps

• 1. Set display environment and coordinate input
• 2. Specify edit coverage and edit feature
• 3. Set drawing environment for edit and back
  coverages
• 4. Set snap environment and edit tolerances
• 5. Add new features or edit positional
  information of coverage features
• 6. SAVING changes, undoing changes, and exiting
  ARCEDIT

Put steps 1 - 4 in AML 5 6 perform at prompt
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Step 1 - Set Display Environment Coordinate
Input

• DISPLAY ENVIRONMENT
• ARCEDIT display 9999
• ARCEDIT term 9999
• COORDINATE INPUT - specify the mode of
  interactive coordinate entry for ARCEDIT commands
  that require coordinate input. You can change
  this multiple times per session. Default is
  cursor do not need to change for heads-up
  digitizing.
• ARCEDIT coordinate lt CURSOR TABLET MOUSEgt
• ARCEDIT coordinate keyboard
• ARCEDIT coordinate digitizer

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Step 2 - Specify edit coverage and edit feature

• Specify which coverage and which type of feature
  to be edited. These are called the edit coverage
  and edit feature.
• During an ARCEDIT session you can change both
  frequently.
• You can have up to ten edit coverages within an
  ARCEDIT session
• The most recently specified edit coverages is the
  active one.
• Editfeature can be abbreviated to EF
• ARCEDIT edit ltcovergt
• ARCEDIT editfeature ltfeature_classgt

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Step 3. Set drawing environment for edit and
back coverages

• A back coverage is for display only they are not
  edited, but may assist in editing another
  coverage. Designate a back coverage with the
  backcover command.
• ARCEDIT backcover ltcovergt symbol
• An image can also be utilized as a background to
  the edit coverage simply call the image
• ARCEDIT image 75069876.jpg
• The backenvironment command specifies which
  feature classes will be drawn for the back
  coverage.
• ARCEDIT backe arc polygon
• Note nothing will draw in your graphics window
  until the DRAW command is given

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Step 3. Set drawing environment for edit and
back coverages, (page 2)

• The drawenvironment command specifies which
  feature classes will be drawn for the edit
  coverage.
• The default setting assumes that no features will
  be drawn. You must specify each feature type to
  be drawn.
• Each feature class can be drawn in a variety of
  ways -- see the on-line help for the
  drawenvironment command to review the options.
  The default for each feature class specified in
  the command line is ON, therefore it is not
  necessary to choose that option.
• If editing arcs, it is a good idea to draw nodes
  with errors (dangling and pseudo) drawn with
  their special symbols (box for dangling, diamond
  for pseudo). The drawing environment will
  automatically update the symbols as errors are
  corrected or introduced.
• ARCEDIT drawe arc node errors

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Step 3. Set draw symbols for pseudo and dangling
nodes (page 3)

• NODECOLOR allows you to specify a color with
  which nodes are drawn when the edit coverage does
  not have a node attribute table.
• NODECOLOR ltNODE DANGLE PSEUDOgt ltcolorgt
• Arcedit nodecolor dangle 2
• Arcedit nodecolor pseudo 3

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Step 3 Draw features (page 4)

• Set the map extent
• ARCEDIT mape DEFAULT SELECT
• ARCEDIT mape ltbackcovergt
• ARCEDIT mape ltxmin ymin xmax ymaxgt
• ARCEDIT mape IMAGE ltimagegt
• The DEFAULT argument sets the map extent to the
  edit coverages stored map extent. The SELECT
  argument will set the mape extent to span exactly
  the selected features in the edit coverage and
  edit feature.
• Draw features specified up to this point (edit
  cover, backcover, image, if specified).
• ARCEDIT draw

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Step 4. Set snap environment and edit tolerances

• The snap environment positions new or modified
  features to exactly match the positions of other
  features.
• There are three types of snapping
• node snapping
• arc snapping
• general snapping
• Will not snap features already digitized it
  affects newly added or edited features only.

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NODE SNAPPING (step 4, p.2)

• A new node is snapped to an existing node if it
  is within the node snapping distance.
• ARCEDIT nodesnap ltFIRST CLOSEST OFFgt
  DEFAULT distance
• Specifies whether the FIRST node found within
  the distance is snapped to, or the CLOSEST node.
  OFF turns nodesnapping off.

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ARC SNAPPING (Step 4, p. 3)

• Arc snapping helps you snap new arcs to existing
  arcs. Arc snapping is used to correct
  undershoots and overshoots.
• ARCEDIT arcsnap on distance
• ARCEDIT arcsnap off

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GENERAL SNAPPING (Step 4, p. 4)

• General snapping ensures that features which
  should align precisely to others are snapped.
• Example -- set the addition of point features
  which represent transformers in an electrical
  utility coverage to lie exactly upon an
  electrical line.
• All new digitized or modified features can be
  snapped
• Snapcoverage specifies the coverage containing
  the features to snap to snapfeatures specifies
  which type of feature in the edit coverage should
  be snapped to which type of feature in the snap
  coverage.
• ARCEDIT snapcoverage ltcovergt
• ARCEDIT snapfeatures ltfeature_typegtltfeature_typ
  egt
• ARCEDIT snapping ltOFF FIRST CLOSESTgt
• DEFAULT distance

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EDIT TOLERANCE (Step 4, p. 5)

• EDITDISTANCE specifies how close the screen
  cursor must be to a target feature to
  successfully select it.
• ARCEDIT editdistance DEFAULT distance
• GRAIN tolerance and WEEDTOLERANCE set the closest
  distance between adjacent arc vertices.
• GRAIN tolerance is used for modifying existing
  arcs with ARCEDIT comands such as SPLINE and for
  adding curved arcs with ADD.
• ARCEDIT grain DEFAULT distance
• WEEDTOLERANCE is used for new arcs you digitize
  with the ARCEDIT ADD command and when modifying
  selected arcs with GENERALIZE.
• ARCEDIT weedtolerance DEFAULT distance

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Set the Draw Symbol (Step 4, p. 6)

• SETDRAWSYMBOL specifies a symbol and color for
  highlighting features as they are selected.
• SETDRAWSYMBOL ltsymbolgt color
• ltsymbolgt - the number of a symbol in the current
  symbolset. ltsymbolgt must be an integer between 1
  and 999. Enter a 0 for the symbol if you want to
  change only the color of features as they are
  redrawn.
• color - the color with which selected features
  will be drawn. Yellow is the default highlight
  color when ARCEDIT starts.

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Step 5. Add new features or edit positional
information of coverage features

• ARCEDIT commands
• add
• select
• move
• copy
• oops
• align
• densify
• drag
• extend
• flip
• generalize

• reshape
• rotate
• spline
• split
• unsplit
• vertex add
• vertex draw
• vertex delete
• vertex move
• merge
• annoplace

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Adding and Editing ARCS and NODES (step 5 contd)

• The arc is the fundamental feature type in
  Arc/INFO (remember, polygons are stored as a list
  of arcs). There are more Arcedit commands to
  edit arcs and their nodes and vertices than for
  any other feature type.
• Nodes cannot exist without arcs. Many commands
  that modify arcs will also affect the placement
  or creation of nodes.
• To add or modify arcs, first set the edit feature
  to arc, and the drawenvironment for arcs and
  nodes.
• See your text, page 375, for a list of useful
  drawenvironment settings.

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Adding and Editing ARCS and NODES (step 5 contd)

• Node types
• Identifying node types can be important for
  coverage automation. There are three types
  normal, pseudo and dangling. Dangling and pseudo
  nodes often identify automation errors however,
  they can also be valid components of a feature.

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Adding and Editing ARCS and NODES (step 5 contd)
(Step 5, page 4)
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Adding and Editing ARCS and NODES (step 5 contd)
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Adding and Editing ARCS and NODES (step 5 contd)

• INTERSECTARCS - this command determines whether
  or not intersections are created when you add,
  move or change coordinates of arcs. Default is
  OFF. Use the add or all setting if you will need
  polygon topology.
• Arcedit intersectarcs ltoff add allgt

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Adding and Editing ARCS and NODES (step 5 contd)

• ADD The ADD command brings up menus designed for
  each type of edit feature. The current edit
  feature determines the class of feature to be
  added, for example, you cannot add arcs if the
  current edit feature is label.
• Arcs can be digitized as straight segments
  (lines), boxes, circles or as the center line
  between specified points. To change the type of
  arc, you can use the ARCTYPE command
• Arcedit arctype lt line box circle
  centerline gt
• Most of the time you will use the default, which
  is line

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Adding and Editing ARCS and NODES (step 5 contd)

• Issue ADD and the following Options menu will
  display with a User-ID prompt for the arc to be
  added.
• Arcedit ADD
• ------------------------------- Options
  ---------------------------------------
• 1) Vertex 2) Node
  3) Curve
• 4) Delete vertex 5) Delete arc
  6) Spline on/off
• 7) Square on/off 8) Digitizing Options 9)
  Quit
• Move the cursor to the point you want to start
  drawing in the graphics screen then choose an
  option key on your keyboard (1 to 9).
• Arcs always begin with a node (2) and end with a
  node. Stop adding with quit (9). Your cursor
  must stay in the graphics window when entering
  options.
• Changes along the line are marked by vertices
  (1).
• See your textbook, page 378 for digitizing steps,
  and look at ArcDoc on ADD for diagrams.

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Adding and Editing ARCS and NODES (step 5 contd)

• SELECT - selects features to edit.
• SELECT ONE MANY ALL OUTLINE DANGLE
  CONNECT UNCLOSED
• ONE - specifies that a single feature will
  become the currently selected set. This is the
  default option for SELECT.
• After entering SELECT at the ArcEdit prompt, you
  will be prompted to position the cursor at the
  location of the feature you wish to select and
  press the 1 key. The feature selected will be
  drawn in yellow or in the current symbol
  specified with SETDRAWSYMBOL.

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Adding and Editing ARCS and NODES (step 5 contd)

• COPY - will copy the arcs that are in your
  selected set.
• Copying coverage features prompts you to enter
  the from and to coordinates. These points can be
  entered anywhere on the coverage.
• COPY duplicates all attributes of selected
  elements, including the coverage ID of features.
• COPY MANY can be used to copy the same feature(s)
  as many times as needed.
• COPY PARALLEL distance will copy the
  single arc you have selected to a parallel offset
  as shown in the illustration.

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Adding and Editing ARCS and NODES (step 5 contd)

• MOVE - moves the currently selected features to a
  new user-specified location.
• MOVE PARALLEL distance
• MOVE, without any arguments, prompts you to enter
  a from-coordinate and to-coordinate, and then
  moves the selected features the relative distance
  and direction between the two points.
• PARALLEL - specifies that selected arcs will be
  moved parallel to themselves. This option is
  only available for the edit feature arc.
• distance - specifies the distance the
  selected arc(s) will be moved parallel from
  itself.

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Adding and Editing ARCS and NODES (step 5 contd)

• DELETE removes the selected arcs from your
  coverage.
• If you accidentally deleted arcs, use the OOPS
  command to restore them. You cannot restore
  deleted arcs after a SAVE.
• OOPS undoes the most recent transaction to the
  features of the current edit coverage. A
  transaction is any change that alters the
  coverage, such as ADD, COPY, CALCULATE, and MOVE.
  You can undo transactions all the way back to
  where the current edit coverage was specified
  with the EDIT command or back to the last save.
  Commands like DRAW, CLEAR, and EDITDISTANCE,
  which set the environment, cannot be undone.

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Adding and Editing VERTICES (step 5 contd)

• The VERTEX command performs many edit operations
  on vertices.
• Before you use this comand , you should select
  only one arc. Otherwise, it may take hours to
  draw all the vertices in one coverage.
• VERTEX DRAW displays all vertices in the selected
  arc as snall, solid-filled cirecles.
• VERTEX ADD lets you add vertices to the selectred
  arc
• VERTEX DELETE lets you remove vertices from the
  selected arc.
• VERTEX MOVE lets you move vertices from the
  selected arc.

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Step 6. SAVING changes, undoing changes, and
exiting ARCEDIT

• During an ARCEDIT session you are working on
  temporary files when you add, modify, or delete
  features. The actual coverage is not updated
  until you SAVE the changes.
• The OOPS command lets you undo the mose recent
  edit, and to step back through your edits to
  remove as many edits as needed. This is not
  possible if you have already SAVED your edits.
• SAVE is usually used without arguments. Use
  often if there is the chance of power failures or
  other reason you might lose your edits, but be
  sure your edits are correct prior to saving.
• Use QUIT to exit Arcedit.

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Summary of Your ArcEdit Session - page 1

• Step 1 - SET DISPLAY ENVIRONMENT
• ARCEDIT display 9999
• ARCEDIT term 9999
• ARCEDIT mape ltcovergt
• Step 2 - Specify edit coverage and edit feature
• ARCEDIT edit ltcovergt
• ARCEDIT editfeature ltfeature_classgt
• Step 3 - Set drawing environment for edit and
  back coverages
• ARCEDIT image ltnamegt.jpg
• ARCEDIT backcover ltcovergt symbol
• ARCEDIT backe ltfeature_classgt
• ARCEDIT drawe arc poly node errors

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Summary of Your ArcEdit Session - page 2

• Step 4 - Set snap environment and edit tolerances
  (and drawing features)
• ARCEDIT mapunits feet
• ARCEDIT mapscale automatic
• ARCEDIT nodesnap closest 20
• ARCEDIT arcsnap on 20
• ARCEDIT editdistance 20
• ARCEDIT intersectarcs all
• ARCEDIT setdrawsymbol 1 cyan
• ARCEDIT nodecolor dangle 2
• ARCEDIT nodecolor pseudo 3
• ARCEDIT draw

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Coverage Creation

• Coverages can be generated using an ascii file
  with x,y coordinates, or they can be created
  using registration TICS and a boundary file from
  an existing coverage or by inputting Tic-IDs and
  locations for at least four tics in ArcEdit.
• Creation of a coverage using registration TICS
  (tic.adf) and a boundary file (bnd.adf) from an
  existing coverage or tics that you enter in
  ArcEdit results in an empty (no feature class
  present) coverage. During coverage creation, the
  projection file (prj.adf) will also be copied
  from the existing coverage to the new coverage,
  if one was present.
• The command CREATE can be used at either the Arc
  prompt or the ArcEdit prompt.

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Creating Feature Attribute Table

• Feature Attribute Tables are created in Arc when
  topology is built.
• To create a feature attribute table for a
  coverage created in ArcEdit you have several
  options
• Save your edits, exit Arcedit, build topology at
  the Arc prompt - this is the fail-proof method.
• For polygon topology, use the BUILD command at
  the ArcEdit prompt. Labels with unique IDs are
  added at the centroid.
• For point or arc topology, use CREATEATTRIBUTES
  command
• OOPS will undo build or createattributes in
  ArcEdit unless edits have been saved.

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Using ArcEdit to add values to an item in the
Feature Attribute Table

• FORMS opens a form menu for editing attributes.
• A feature attribute table must exist for the
  features to be edited and additional items added
  with ADDITEM.
• You must SAVE the new attribute items before
  starting FORMS because FORMS reads the items from
  INFO, not from ARCEDITs temporary files.
• FORMS works on the current edit feature.
• FORMS works on the selected set of elements. If
  no elements are selected when FORMS is executed,
  all features or INFO records will be selected.

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Annotation

• Annotation is a unique coverage feature class
  that stores labels used to describe other
  geographic features.
• Annotation can be organized into annotation
  subclasses and levels. For example, a coverage
  storing roads may have street names in one
  annotation level, highway names in another level,
  and place names in a third level. Alternatively,
  the roads coverage might have two subclasses, one
  for street names and one for highway names, each
  containing several levels for specific annotation
  text sizes.

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Annotation, page 2

• ANNOTEXT draws annotation using the text symbol
  numbers stored with the annotation. The symbol
  numbers access text symbol definitions from the
  currently loaded textset file. If a textset file
  was specified with the TEXTSET command when the
  annotation was created (either in ARCPLOT or
  ARCEDIT), the same set should be loaded with the
  TEXTSET command before using ANNOTEXT to draw the
  annotation. In this way the correct text symbols
  will be used to draw the annotation.

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Using an item value to create annotation

• Step 1 - Create an annotation attribute table
  (.TAT)
• Arcedit createfeature anno.bldg
• Step 2 - Specify the edit feature
• Arcedit editfeature anno.bldg
• Step 3 - Specify the drawing and symbolization
  environmts
• Arcedit textset font.txt (also look at
  annosymbol, annoplace, annooffset, annoalignment,
  annoposition, annosize)
• Step 4 - Specify the feature on which to place
  annotation and the source of the annotation (item
  name).
• Arcedit annofeature poly name
• Step 5 - Capture annotation based on the current
  setting of the ANNOFEATURE command.
• Arcedit annocapture

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Editing Feature Attributes

• Editing feature attributes in ArcEdit utilizes
  the same commands as in Arcplot, CALCULATE and
  MOVEITEM, and the commands have the same
  functionality as in ArcPlot or in INFO.
• Both commands operate upon the current edit
  feature and selected set.
• CALCULATE lttarget_itemgt ltarithmetic_expressiongt
• MOVEITEM ltcharacter_string source_itemgt TO
  lttarget_itemgt

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Transferring features between coverages

• The PUT and GET commands are designed to transfer
  features between coverages.
• The PUT command takes the features in your edit
  coverage, edit feature, and selected set, and
  writes them out to the specified coverage. If
  the coverage specified does not yet exist, this
  command will create a new coverage. Otherwise
  the new features will be appended to the existing
  features. WARNING You can not undo the PUT
  command.
• The GET command imports all the features from the
  specified coverage. Any snapping environment or
  edit tolerances currently set are applied on the
  imported features.