What's new in Esri Defense Mapping (Defense Mapping)

With Esri Defense Mapping, several enhancements have been added and geoprocessing tools have been created.

The latest update can be downloaded from the Esri Support site. The following changes can be found in the latest update.

New at 10.2.2

The following are geoprocessing enhancements.

• Split Features is a new tool in the Features toolset that splits features in batch for any number of polyline or polygon target feature classes using the cutting features, and inserts points on the cutting feature.
• Custom Map Info Table is a new parameter in the Create Rapid Graphic tool that contains the Field_Name and Element_Part fields that control the mapping between feature attributes and graphic elements.

New at 10.2 and updates

New geoprocessing tools

• Create Adjoining Sheet Guide Data—A tool in the Cartographic Data toolset that creates data used in the adjoining sheet guide of Defense Mapping templates. The tool uses an input area of interest (AOI) to find surrounding areas of interest. It creates data within those AOIs in the ASG_COAST_L and ASG_LAND_A feature classes.
• Create Elevation Guide Data—A tool in the Cartographic Data toolset that creates data required for an Elevation Guide Box in defense-specific map templates. This tool uses banding and thinning tools to create elevation bands, spot heights, and hydro features for the guide box.
• Create Rapid Graphic—A tool in the Cartographic Data toolset that produces a complete map document (.mxd) based on a specified map product. The tool uses an input area of interest, defense map product and data model version, elevation and feature data, and several tools to create the map document. The output map document contains defense-specific graphics. Multiple output map documents are created if the Input Area of Interest has more than one selected feature.
• Make Representations Invisible—A tool in the Cartographic Data toolset that sets feature representations invisible in an input feature layer or selected set of features. Setting a representation to invisible does not alter its feature geometry. Use this functionality to improve a map product's aesthetic or cartographic quality by hiding overlapping features and removing visual clutter.
• Create Low And High Spots—A tool in the Hypsography toolset that finds the high and low spot heights for each feature in an input area of interest. Spot heights are appended to a Defense Mapping feature class.
• Create Spot Heights—A tool in the Hypsography toolset that creates elevation point features based on contour tops and depressions. Elevation points are created in each top and depression. Point height values are populated based on a digital elevation model.
• Suppress Spot Heights—A tool in the Hypsography toolset that suppresses the symbol for spot heights based on the input product type. The tool uses the Make Representations Invisible tool to suppress the spot height symbols.
• Import Topology imports a topology stored in an XML file into a specified workspace.
• Export Topology exports the topology in a workspace to an XML file.
• Geodatabase Compare compares feature classes and tables between two geodatabases.
• Batch Make Defense Grids and Graticules creates a grids and graticules layer from multiple selected AOI features.
• Building Offsets runs the Resolve Building Conflicts geoprocessing tool using preconfigured settings for Defense Mapping cartographic products beginning with MGCP TLM50s, MGCP MDGs, and LTDS LDG50.
• Grid Xml Selector selects the proper grid XML from the installation directory based on the extent of the AOI, such as TLM 50, TLM 100, and JOGA.
• Smooth Line uses a centerline algorithm to simplify and smooth the input polyline features.
• Create Contours creates smooth contours over an input raster. The contours are based on the intended viewing scale of the cartographic product that is being created. The tool also populates the attribute table of the input features. The fields that are populated are specific to the supported Defense Mapping schemas; if these fields do not exist in the input feature class, they are created and populated during runtime.
• Unzip Cell And Import unzips and imports compressed Multinational Geospatial Co-production Program (MGCP) 1-degree-by-1-degree cell packages (*.zip) into a target geodatabase.

Geoprocessing enhancements

• The Create Contours and Code Contours tools were moved to the new Hypsography toolset.

Deprecated tools

The following Stereo Airfield tools were removed.

• Validate SAC Shapefiles
• Export SAC Data