An overview of the Editing toolbox

The Editing tools allow you to apply bulk editing to all (or selected) features in a feature class.

Sometimes data is captured or digitized with an inadequate precision or lack of a snapping environment. This results in polygon boundaries that are not closed (have gaps) or lines that undershoot or overshoot their intended intersection with other lines. You can use some of these tools to address this sort of data quality issue. Other editing tools help address vertex density, conflation, and other data issues.

Tool

Description

Densify

Adds vertices along line or polygon features. Also replaces curve segments (Bezier, circular arcs, and elliptical arcs) with line segments.

Erase Point

Deletes points from the input that are either inside or outside the Remove Features, depending on the Operation Type.

Extend Line

This tool extends line segments to the first intersecting feature within a specified distance. If no intersecting feature is within the specified distance, the line segment will not be extended. Tool use is intended for quality control tasks such as cleaning up topology errors in features that were digitized without having set proper snapping environments.

Flip Line

Reverses the from-to direction of line features.

Generalize

Simplifies the input features using the Douglas-Peucker simplification algorithm with a specified maximum offset tolerance. The output features will contain a subset of the original input vertices.

Snap

Moves points or vertices to coincide exactly with the vertices, edges, or end points of other features. Snapping rules can be specified to control whether the input vertices are snapped to the nearest vertex, edge, or endpoint within a specified distance.

Trim Line

Removes portions of a line that extend a specified distance past a line intersection (dangles). Any line that does not touch another line at both endpoints can be trimmed, but only the portion of the line that extends past the intersection by the specified distance will be removed.

Toolset

Description

Conflation

GIS data often comes from many sources. Spatial and attribute differences among various data sources sometimes requires you to resolve the inconsistencies before you can make use of the data. Conflation tools help you reconcile data from multiple sources and obtain the best possible data quality for analysis and mapping.

Related tools

Tool

Description

Integrate

Integrate is used to maintain the integrity of shared feature boundaries by making features coincident if they fall within the specified x,y tolerance. Features that fall within the specified x,y tolerance are considered identical or coincident.

Delete Features

Deletes all or the selected subset of features from the input.

Delete Field

This tool deletes one or more fields from a table, feature class, feature layer, or raster dataset.

Below is a list of some related tools found in other toolboxes that are also useful in editing and/or data cleanup workflows.

Related Topics

3/6/2014