Enabling 3D editing tools

To enable editing tools and commands, you must have started a 3D edit session with editable feature layers.

Rather than a tool being unavailable until the correct conditions are met, the primary editing tools on the 3D Editor toolbar are generally enabled during an edit session. If a tool cannot be used because certain criteria are not met, a message appears and provides information about the tool's requirements and intended usage. This makes it easier for you to remedy the situation and be able to use the tool successfully.

These are some of the common conditions required by tools:

Required selections

Most tools require a single feature of a certain geometry type to be selected, although some need two or more features. If you attempt to use a tool and do not have the proper selection, a message describing the issue is shown.

Some examples of required selections for some of the editing tools and menu commands are as follows:

Required selection

Editing tool and/or command

One line feature

Split (tool and command), Copy Parallel

One polygon feature

Cut Polygons

One or more multipatch features

Replace with model

One feature

Edit Vertices

Two features of the same geometry type

Merge (features must be from the same layer), Union, Intersect

One or more features

Duplicate Vertical (The selected features can be from different layers and of different feature types.)

A few tools on the toolbar are always enabled and open new windows when you click them, but the content of the window is blank until certain conditions are met.

Required templates

Templates must be used when interactively creating new features. If you create a feature in some other way, such as copy and paste, and you have no templates for any of the layers in your scene or globe, you are provided with a list of available layers in which to create the new features. However, if you have templates for only certain layer types and attempt to use a command that requires templates for a different geometry type, you get an error message. For example, when using Copy Parallel, if you have a template for a polygon but no line templates, you see an error message telling you to create line templates in order to use the command.

8/16/2013