Formatting data and minimizing topology errors

This topic applies to ArcGIS for Desktop Standard and ArcGIS for Desktop Advanced only.

The Load A Topology To A Parcel Fabric geoprocessing tool loads a topology containing a parcel polygon feature class and a parcel line feature class. The topology must be validated against a required set of topology rules, and any topology errors need to be cleaned before the loading process. The following tools can be used to format and reduce topology errors in your source parcel data prior to migration.

Formatting source parcel lines and polygons

Both a parcel polygon feature class and a corresponding line feature class is required to migrate parcel data to a parcel fabric using the topology loader geoprocessing tool. If you have only a parcel polygon feature class, you can use the Polygon To Line geoprocessing tool to create lines from your polygons. Make sure to choose Identify and story polygon neighboring information on the Polygon To Line dialog box to ensure that duplicate lines are not created for neighboring polygons sharing a common boundary.

When line features are migrated to the parcel fabric, polylines are split into individual parcel lines at each vertex. You can choose to migrate polyline features as line strings (natural boundaries). Parcel lines in the fabric have COGO dimensions and a start and end point. Line strings in the fabric have a fabric point for each vertex but do not have COGO dimensions.

The tolerance you specify for Minimum Line String Segment Count on the Load a Topology to a Parcel Fabric dialog box determines whether or not a polyline is migrated as a line string. For example, if you specify a tolerance of 20, polylines with more than 20 segments will be migrated as line strings. Polylines with less than 20 segments will be split into individual parcel lines.

Splitting polylines and identifying curves

You can use the tools in the Split lines at inflection points and create circular arcs add-in to split polylines into individual lines and convert densified arcs into circular arcs. These tools will also identify and split out curves from polylines that also contain straight line segments.

Fixing geometry and COGO attributes

You can download parcel fabric data migration and analysis tools located on the resource center to fix bad polygon and line geometry and fix incorrect COGO attribution.

Minimizing topology errors

Slivers and overlaps in your source parcel data will result in a large number of topology errors. You can use the Integrate geoprocessing tool to make features coincident that fall within a specified x,y tolerance. Using Integrate will minimize the number of topology errors from the Must Be Covered By Boundary Of, Boundary Must Be Covered By and Must Not Intersect Or Touch Interior rules.

The topology requires that line features must be single-part lines. Use the Multipart To Singlepart geoprocessing tool to separate (explode) multipart features into separate, single-part features. You can also use the Explode tool Explode Multipart Feature located on the Advanced Editing toolbar to separate a selected multipart feature into its individual, component features in ArcMap.

The topology requires that line features must not intersect each other or self-intersect. Use the Planarize Lines tool Planarize Lines on the Topology toolbar to split lines into individual segments at their points of intersection. This can be useful when you have nontopological line work that has been spaghetti digitized or imported from computer-aided design (CAD) drawings.

1/25/2013