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Polyline Edit Tools Dialog

NOTE:

In order to ensure that the attributes are updated appropriately go to THEME/PROPERTIES/EDITING and adjust the values in the Attribute Updating panel before performing any editing.

All the actions can be undone using CTRL+Z.

NEW: All the tools maintain topological relationship between the existing and the new or edited polylines. Due to many users requests version 3.6 allows some of the tools to be used without enforcing topology.   If the Force Topology checkbox is selected the following tools will maintain topological relationship.

• Extend polyline
• Extend two polylines to their intersection
• Move node
• Add polyline
• Add polyline with attributes
• Add polygon as polyline
• Copy polylines from another theme
• Local intersect
• Offset a polyline
• Create a centerline

If the Force Topology check box is not checked the above tools will not trigger the procedures creating topological relationships.

It is strongly recommended to maintain the topological relationships while editing. The default value of the Force Topology check box is checked

Main Tools

• Snapping Control panel ET provides it's own general snapping. It does not use ArcView's snapping. Using the list box a snap method can be selected. There are three methods available - Node, Vertex and Nearest. None will switch snapping off. Method for snapping to intersection is not provided assuming that in each intersection we have to have a Node. NOTE it is a general snapping only  - if new line is added the snapping occurs only after adding the end node and all the vertices will be snapped using the current snapping method. Defining snapping distance is only interactively, using the snap tool.
• Draw(Redraw) nodes button Draws the nodes for the visible extent of the View. For polylines which are partially outside of the visible extent the nodes outside of this area will be incorrectly colored. If you zoom out,pan or edit something  you must analyze again in order to draw the nodes with correct colors. If you want to get rid of the node graphics use CTRL+CLICK.
  NEW: If you keep the SHIFT key down while clicking on th button the regular nodes will not be displayed. In some cases this will help to identify the node errors.
• Select Tool Looks and works the same way as ArcView's select tool with two differences:
  • CTRL+CLICK introduces Selection Method Dialog . This is a Modal Dialog, the user selects selection method: Rectangle, Polygon, Circle or Polyline. This method becomes current and is used with several other tools.
  • When the selection method is of Polygon Type (Rectangle, Polygon, Circle) using CTRL+Select will select only the features which are entirely inside the selection shape. Without CTRL all the features intersected by selection shape will be selected.
• Extend Tool User draws a line from a Polyline he wishes to extend towards a boundary he wants the Polyline to be extended to. The first point of the selection line is used to select a Polyline to be extended. The length of the selection line defines how far the program will look for boundary. The Polyline will keep the direction (bearing) of the last (first) segment of the Polyline. The Polyline will be extended only to first met boundary. The boundary will be split from the extended Polyline. A Node will be created in the intersection point.
• Extend Two Lines Tool Extends two Polylines to their common intersection. Any polygon type selection method can be used. If the current selection method is Polyline Polygon will be used instead. The end nodes of the two Polylines to be extended should be inside selection Polygon. No other nodes should be inside the selection shape. If the extensions of the Polylines intersect any other features - nodes will be created in intersection points. If CTRL + CLICK is used during selection the polylines will not be extended, but the end nodes of the polylines will be linked with a new Polyline
• Split tool  offers four methods for splitting a Polyline. CTRL+CLICK invokes the Select Split Method Dialog It works the same way as the Selection Method Dialog. The user selects a split method and it becomes current method. The four methods are:
  • Split in the selection point
  • Slit in all vertices
  • Split by user defined distance from the Polyline's start point. Use CTRL+Select to split by percentage from the start point (50% = split in the middle point of the polyline)
  • Split in equal intervals by user defined distance. NOTE: The length of the resulting polylines will not be necessary the exact distance user specified, but rather the closest distance with which the Polyline can be split into equal intervals. Use CTRL+Select to chose number of segments instead of a distance
  • Split in closest vertex.
• Move Node Tool . Works very similar to ArcView's Vertex Edit Tool. When the user moves Vertex the only difference is that if the reshaped Polyline intersects any other feature(s) Nodes are created in the intersection point(s). When a Node is moved all the Polylines linked to this Node are reshaped as wellThis is simple example before and after moving a Node, the green dot on the second picture indicates the previous position of the node. Use CTRL+Click to select snap theme. The default snap theme is the Current theme
• Remove Redundant Nodes Tool  User can make selection with any Polygon Type selection method. All the polylines inside selected shape are deleted, Nodes of all the polylines partially inside the selection shape are replaced by single node in the center of the shape formed by the inside nodes the example shows the state before applying the procedure together with the selection rectangle and the result. This tool can be used for removing any remaining PseudoPseudo Nodes as well as for manually removing Undershoots.

• New Line Tool  adds new Polyline to the theme.Creates nodes if intersects existing polylines. It's action might look similar to the standard ArcView Split Tool, but there are three differences:
  • adds line to the theme no matter if the line intersects existing polylines or not
  • creates intersections and cleans PseudoPseudo Nodes
  • if the new Polyline is self intersecting, nodes are created in the points of self intersection.

  Use CTRL+Click to select snap theme. The default snap theme is the Current theme

• Add new polyline with attributes Tool works as New Line Tool  , but the user is prompted to add attribute values for the new polyline.
• Copy Feature From Theme . Use CTRL+CLICK to select source theme. Select features from the source theme using any selection method and they will be copied to the current editable theme.If there are common fields and the source and target (current) the attributes will be copied as well. If the source theme is of Polygon type the selected polygon features are converted to polyline. Use SHIFT+Select to erase the features or portions of them within the selected polygons.
• Polygon As Polyline Tool adds new Polyline to the theme. The type of the feature to be added(rectangle, circle or polygon) is defined by the type of the feature used for the selection. If the feature type is Polyline a Polygon will be added.
• Erase With Polygon Tool erases the features(or parts of them) within user drawn polygon, circle or rectangle (defined by the type of the feature used for the selection). The attributes are updated according to the User defined split rules. NEW: In ET 3.6 this tool is moved to the seconf row of the Polyline Edit Tools dialog
• Local Intersect Tool  User selects features with any selection method if some of the selected Polyline intersects another Polyline without existing node (standard ArcView Draw Line tool has been used), a new node will be created in the intersection point. Since global intersect (see Clean Dialog) is time consuming especially with big coverages, this tool can be used to clean parts of the coverage. The tool checks for self intersecting polylines.
  NEW: Before version 3.6 the tool created intersections between the selected polylines and all the other polylines in the theme that have intersection point(s) with them. In version 3.6 if the Force Topology check box is unchecked, only the selected polylines will be interected.
• Merge Selected Tool  It can be called Local Pseudo Node Clean.User can selects features using any Polygon Type selection method (If the selection method is Polyline, Polygon method will be applied). All Pseudo Nodes inside the selection shape will be cleaned (the pertaining Polyline will be merged). NOTE: No dissolve item will be asked for. Two polylines joined in a Pseudo Node will be merged no matter of their attributes.
• Show Control Panel.   Due to the large amount of tools the size of Edit Tools Dialog is quite big which sometimes is very inconvenient because it covers a big portion of the screen. The purpose of this control panel with a single button is to give the user a way to hide parts of the tools when not in use and free some screen space.  The Edit Tools Dialog is divided in three rows. The top one contains the main tools (described above), the middle one contains mainly tools for attribute copying and pasting as well as some additional tools for feature editing (see below). The third row called status bar shows current tolerances and settings. The button controls which part of Edit Tools Dialog to be shown. The label of the button changes and specifies what will be shown at next click

Attribute Tools

• Select Attribute Source Using this button the User can select a theme from the current View from which he can copy attributes to the clipboard  (the default is current theme). The next step is to select which fields will be used. The Select Field to Copy Button    helps the User to define from which fields of the source Feature table he would like to copy attribute values. It introduces a new dialog   which is populated with all available fields from the attribute source Ftab. By checking the check Boxes against desired fields the User selects the fields which values he wants to copy. Those fields are used by the Copy Attributes From Feature to Clipboard Tool to populate the Clipboard with the values of the feature he selects for the desired fields. The contents of the Clipboard can be pasted with Paste Attributes Tool  to a feature or Paste Attributes to Selected Button to all currently selected features. If some of the fields in the clipboard are not existing in the current theme's feature table they can be pasted with the Paste Fields Button . If the User wants to change some values in the Clipboard, he can do that using Edit Clipboard Values Button  which opens dialog for editing current clipboard values  where he can input the values which he wants to pass.  May be this looks a bit confusing, but it is logical (if you ask me).:
  1. Select Source Theme
  2. Select fields to be copied
  3. Click on a feature to Populate the Clipboard with it's attributes: 
  4. Edit Clipboard Values (if needed) with
  5. Paste the fields (if not existing) to the current theme's ftab:
  6. Now click on a feature to paste Clipboard contents to: or use to paste it to all selected features.

  Once steps 1.), 2.) and 5.) have been passed. It can be as easy as copy from feature , paste to feature .

Additional Tools

They are situated on the second row (together with the attributes tools),but can be as useful as the ones from the top row:

• Offset Tool  CTRL+CLICK invokes the Offset Settings dialog.The standard procedure uses the Avenue request "ReturnOffset". In some cases this request gives incorrect results but can be used when the polyline to be offset is comparatively straight. The enhanced procedure is slower than the standard one and works more like buffering. From the Smoothness control panel the user can define the smoothness of the offset line. If the smoothness is set to high the offset polyline will be smoother, but it is more time consuming. The selection line defines the Polyline to be offset and direction of the offset. The Polyline closest to the start point of the selection line will be offset in the direction of the end point of the selection line. The offset distance is stored in the status bar of Edit Tools Dialog.   If the CTRL key is held down OFFSET - MOVE otherwise OFFSET - COPY.
• Center Line Tool    CTRL+CLICK to define step size. SHIFT+CLICK to set a source theme. Creates center line of two polylines. If the source theme is set, using CTRL+SELECT the user can select two lines from another theme - their centerline is added to the current theme. Normal select creates centerline of two polylines from the current theme.The selection line defines the base Polyline for deriving the centerline. It is the Polyline closest to the start point of selection line. For best results the base line should be the Polyline with longer straight segments. The selection line length defines the search tolerance (Max distance between the two polylines where centerline will be created)  for centerline creation. The black line in this example is a short selection line - shorter than the distance between the two Polylines in the middle- the centerline is missing in the middle part. For some applications this is the better approach.  The same polylines with longer selection line will give the following result  This Tool is very much dependant on users approach. The step size can influence the results very much as well. Do not give this tool impossible tasks!
• Select and Generalize Tool .Use CTRL+CLICK to specify Grain Tolerance. The User can use any Selection Method to select polylines to be generalized with the current Grain Tolerance
• Select and Densify Tool  .Use CTRL+CLICK to specify Grain Tolerance. The User selects with point a  Polyline to be densified. Vertices are added along the Polyline at the Grain Tolerance
• Select and Spline Tool    Use CTRL+CLICK to specify Grain Tolerance. The User selects with point a  Polyline to be splined. The Polyline is smoothed with current Grain Tolerance
• Flip Polyline Tool  flips selected by point Polyline.

Status Bar

Situated on the third row of the Edit Tools Dialog.  Keeps the values of the different tolerances, selection method, attribute source theme,and feature source theme.