Selecting features by their location

You can select features inside a 3D view using either 2D or 3D spatial relationships. In many cases, a 2D selection is all that is needed—for example, when selecting landownership parcels that are within a city boundary. In other cases, a 3D selection might be needed—for example, selecting all the buildings within 100 meters of an underground subway line.

You differentiate 2D selections from 3D selections by specifying the spatial relationship method.

Select By Location lets you select features based on their location relative to other features. The result is calculated by the direct distance in 3D rather than the 2D distance.

The Select By Location dialog box is opened from the Selection menu on the Standard toolbar.

Steps:

1. Click the Selection menu and click Select By Location.
2. Click the I want to drop-down arrow and choose from the Selection Method menu.
3. Check the layers whose features you want to select.
4. Click the next drop-down arrow and choose a spatial relationship selection method. There are two 3D options available:
   • intersect (3d)
   • are within a distance of (3d)
5. Click the last drop-down arrow and click the layer you want to use to search for the features.
6. Check the box to use only the selected features.
7. Optionally, check the box to apply a buffer to the features in the layer and set the distance within which to search for features.
8. Click Apply or click OK if you want to execute the query and close the dialog box in one click.
9. Click Close. The features are selected.

Tip:

• Click the Help button on the Select By Location dialog box for detailed information on each select by location operation.
• The Select By Attributes dialog box and Select By Location dialog box both have check boxes that let you choose to only show selectable layers. If you check this box, ArcGlobe and ArcScene remember this setting between sessions. This setting also applies to ArcMap. In this way, you can check this box once and it will be checked whenever you use this dialog box.
• There is also the Select Layer By Location geoprocessing tool that includes these 3D spatial relationships.