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:

• An appropriate current selection

• The proper feature template when creating new features

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.

• The Attributes window requires you to select one or more features from an editable layer.
• The Edit Sketch Properties window requires that you are currently editing the geometry of a feature (click a feature with the Edit Vertex tool ).
• The Create Features window contains separate buttons allowing you to add templates to the window. However, templates are hidden for layers that are turned off and for layers or templates that have been filtered from view, so check those settings before attempting to create new templates.

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.