Editing Tutorial (Part 1)

Introduction to the Editing tutorial

The easiest way to learn how to edit in ArcMap is to complete the exercises in this tutorial. Most of these exercises can be completed with an ArcView license—the exception is the geodatabase topology exercise, which requires an ArcEditor or ArcInfo license.

The first portion of the tutorial (Exercises 1–3) uses data from Utah's Zion National Park, which contains such geologic wonders as red and tan sandstone rocks, steep cliffs, and multitudes of canyons. You will use the editing environment in ArcMap to create and modify spatial features to represent various natural and human-made phenomena in the park. After completing these exercises, you are able to create different types of new features, including points, lines, polygons, and text; assign attribute values; edit shapes; and build and use feature templates. You will also become familiar with many of the tools

and parts of the user interface available to you when editing.

The remaining exercises (Exercises 4–5) show you how to edit data. You will learn how to maintain spatial integrity through topology and how to integrate new data with existing datasets using spatial adjustment.

You should complete the tutorial in sequence, since the software methods build on those introduced in earlier exercises and assume you understand those concepts. For exercises 1–3, you should complete the all subparts (such as a, b, c, and d) at the same time, then only stop after completing a whole exercise. For exercises 4–5, you can restart the tutorial again on either the next exercise or subpart without any difficulty since the maps and data are independent in these exercises.

Overview of the tutorial exercises

The tutorial is divided into a series of exercises and subparts:

• Exercise 1 introduces the editing environment, including the terminology and ArcMap user interface. You learn how to create new points, digitize lines and polygons on the map, change editing tools, utilize snapping while creating features, and use feature templates.

 

• Exercise 2 builds on these skills. You learn how to create features from existing features and how to edit existing features.

 

• Exercise 3 is all about text on your map. You convert labels to geodatabase annotation, place the text on the map, and create new annotation features using the editing tools.

 

• Exercise 4 shows you how to edit features to maintain spatial integrity. You use map topology to edit shared features and geodatabase topology to ensure that your line features connect properly. An ArcEditor or ArcInfo license is required to complete exercise 4b on geodatabase topology.

 

• Exercise 5 uses spatial adjustment to transform and align your spatial data and transfer attributes among features.

Note: The tutorial assumes that you are using the default settings for the editing environment. If you have customized your options, you may need to reset them to match the steps in the tutorial. For example, by default, angular measurements are entered in degrees using the polar system, which is the format of the values provided in the tutorial. You can change the settings for

Data credits

Zion National Park datasets are courtesy of the National Park Service and the United States Geological Survey.

Map topology datasets are courtesy of the United States Geological Survey. The world imagery is a Web-based layer being served from ArcGIS.com.

 

Exercise 1a: Creating new points

About creating new points

In this exercise, you will use an aerial photograph to create a new point feature representing a park ranger station in Zion National Park. Once the feature is created, you will then add attribute values to the point. You are introduced to the Editor toolbar, the Create Features window, and the Attributes window, which are the main elements of the ArcMap user interface when editing.

To start this exercise, you first need to zoom the map to your area of interest. A spatial bookmark, which is similar to a bookmark in a Web browser, is a way to save frequently used locations on your map so you can easily access them. A bookmark has been created for you containing the map extent in which you will be working.

Note: This exercise requires an active Internet connection since it uses imagery served from the Web. If you do not have an Internet connection or if the imagery is loading slowly, you can still perform the tutorial using an image that is installed with the tutorial data. You need to turn on the DOQQ imagery (local) layer in the table of contents, then you can turn off the World imagery (Web) layer.

Prerequisite:

Start ArcMap.

Steps:

1. Click the Open button on the Standard toolbar.

 

2. Navigate to the Exercise1.mxd map document in the Editing directory where you installed the

tutorial data. (C:\ArcGIS\ArcTutor is the default location.) If the Getting Started window opens, choose to browse for an existing map and navigate to Exercise1.mxd.

 

3. Click the map and click Open.

 

4. If you are prompted to enable hardware acceleration to improve performance, click Yes.

 

5. Click the Bookmarks menu and click Visitor center to zoom you to the area around a visitor center ranger station at the south entrance of Zion National Park.

 

6. Click the Editor Toolbar button on the Standard toolbar.

 

7. Click the Editor menu on the Editor toolbar and click Start Editing.

 

8. In the Create Features window, click the Ranger stations point feature template. This sets up the editing environment so that you will be creating new point features in the Ranger stations layer.

These feature templates were created for you and saved in the tutorial map document. In a later tutorial exercise, you will create feature templates yourself and modify their properties.

 

9. Click the Point tool on the Create Features window.

 

10. Using the aerial imagery, click the map to place a point directly over the visitor center building in the center of the display. Since you are creating points, clicking the map once adds the feature. If you were drawing lines or polygons, however, you would need to use more than one click so you could create segments in between vertices.

Notice that the center of the symbol contains a solid, cyan-colored (light, bright blue) circle. By default, as soon as you create new features when editing, they are selected. This allows you to easily identify the new feature and add attribute values to it.

 

11. Click the Attributes button on the Editor toolbar.

Using the Attributes window is a quick way of updating the attribute values of one or more selected features when you are editing. The top of the window shows a hierarchy of the name of the layer and, underneath it, an identifier for the individual feature from that layer. The bottom of the window shows the field (a column in a table) names and the attribute values (a row in a table) for the feature.

 

12. Click inside the box for the Location property value, which is currently <Null>.

 

13. Type Visitor Center and press ENTER. This action stores the attribute values for that feature. Notice that the entry for the feature on the top of the window is no longer a generic number but has been replaced with the more descriptive Visitor Center.

14. Close the Attributes window.

 

15. To continue to the next exercise, Exercise 1b: Digitizing lines and snapping.

You have now completed the first exercise and created a new point feature. In the next exercises, you will

learn how to create new lines and polygons.

Exercise 1b: Digitizing lines and snapping

About digitizing with snapping

In the first exercise, you digitized a point over an aerial photograph; in this one, you will trace over the image to create a new line representing a road.

Because part of the road has already been created, you should use snapping to help ensure the new road feature connects to the existing roads. When snapping is turned on, your pointer will jump, or snap to, edges, vertices, and other geometric elements when it is near them. This enables you to position a feature easily in relation to the locations of other features. All the settings you need to work with snapping are located on the Snapping toolbar.

Note: This exercise requires an active Internet connection since it uses imagery served from the Web. If you do not have an Internet connection or if the imagery is loading slowly, you can still perform the tutorial using an image that is installed with the tutorial data. You need to turn on the DOQQ imagery (local) layer in the table of contents, then you can turn off the World imagery (Web) layer.

Setting options for snapping

Prerequisite:

The Exercise1.mxd is open and you are in an edit session.

Steps:

1. Navigate to the Digitizing roads bookmark. The extent is just south of the point feature you created in the previous exercise.

 

2. Add the Snapping toolbar to ArcMap. You can add a toolbar by clicking the Customize menu, pointing to Toolbars, then clicking the toolbar's name in the list. You can also add the Snapping toolbar by clicking the Editor menu, pointing to Snapping, the clicking Snapping Toolbar.

 

3. On the Snapping toolbar, click the Snapping menu and confirm that Use Snapping is checked.

If it is already checked, do not click it again, since that will turn off snapping. If Use Snapping is not checked, click it to enable snapping.

 

4. Look on the Snapping toolbar and confirm that End , Vertex , and Edge snapping types are active. When enabled, the buttons are highlighted. If they are not enabled, click each button to enable those agents.

 

5. Click the Snapping menu and click Options. From this dialog box, you can specify settings for snapping in ArcMap.

 

6. Ensure the snap tolerance is at least 10 pixels.

The snapping tolerance is the distance within which the pointer or a feature is snapped to another location. If the element being snapped to—such as a vertex or edge—is within the distance you set, the pointer automatically snaps to the location.

 

7. Check the boxes for Show Tips, Layer Name, Snap Type, and Background. Most likely, you only need to check on Background, as the others are turned on by default. A SnapTip is a small piece of text that pops up to indicate the layer you are snapped to and with which snap type (edge, end, vertex, and so on). The background is useful to help you see the SnapTip when working over an image.

8. Optionally, you can change the color used for the snap symbol and set SnapTip display options, such as the size or font of the tip.

 

9. Click OK to close the Snapping Options dialog box.

 

Digitizing a line

Steps:

1. You are now ready to begin digitizing the new road. In the Create Features window, click the Local road line template, which is grouped under Roads. This feature template was created for you and saved in the tutorial map document.

The list of available construction tools at the bottom of the window changes to those used to create lines. Since the Line tool is the default tool for this template, it is activated automatically.

 

2. Rest your pointer over the endpoint of the existing line in the western portion of the map display, but do not click yet. Notice that the pointer icon changes to a square snap symbol and a SnapTip appears with the name of the layer (Roads) and the snap type (Endpoint) in use. You can zoom or pan closer if you need to do so.

 

3. Click once.

  

You digitize, or sketch, a new line or polygon by defining the feature's shape. You see a preview with the actual symbology used for that feature, with vertices symbolized as green and red boxes.

As you are digitizing, the Feature Construction toolbar appears near your pointer. It is a small, semitransparent toolbar that allows quick access to some of the most common tools and commands used when editing. If you find that the toolbar gets in the way of where you want to add a vertex, press the TAB key to reposition it. You will use the Feature Construction toolbar more in a later exercise.

 

4. Using the aerial photo as a guide, digitize the new line by clicking the map each place you want to add a vertex.

  

5. Once you have digitized the new line, snap to the end of the existing feature and click to place a vertex there.

 

6. Press the F2 key, which finishes the sketch to turn your shape into an actual feature in the geodatabase. You can finish a sketch in one of several ways: pressing F2, double-clicking, or using the right-click shortcut menu or the pop-up Feature Construction toolbar.

 

7. To continue to the next exercise, Exercise 1c: Creating new feature templates.

In this exercise, you learned how to set up snapping and use it to help you digitize a new road that connects to existing roads.

Exercise 1c: Creating new feature templates

About creating feature templates

In the first exercises, you used feature templates that were already created for you. Now, you will make your own template using a wizard.

You will create a template for a polygon layer representing private landownership.

Prerequisite:

The Exercise1.mxd is open and you are in an edit session.

Steps:

1. Click Organize Templates on the Create Features window.

 

2. Click Tracts on the left side of the Organize Feature Templates dialog box. If this layer had any existing templates, they would be listed on the right.

 

3. Click New Template.

The Create New Templates Wizard opens. The first page shows you a list of all the layers in your map that are currently being edited.

 

4. Because the Tracts polygon layer was selected when you started the wizard, only this layer should be checked. Otherwise, check it and uncheck any other layers.

  

5. Click Finish.

When layers are symbolized by categories, you are able to click Next and choose the categories for which you want to make feature templates. Since the Tracts layer is symbolized as a single symbol, the wizard is finished in one step.

 

6. A template for Tracts appears in the Organize Feature Templates dialog box. Click the Tracts

template and click Properties.

  

The Template Properties dialog box allows you to review and change the template settings. For example, you can rename a template, provide a description, set the default construction tool, and specify the attribute values that should be assigned to new features created with this template.

 

7. In the Description box, type Private lands in Zion. The description appears when you rest your pointer over a template in the Create Features window.

  

You can also use tags to identify and help search for templates in the future. A tag representing the layer type—Polygon—is added automatically.

 

8. Click in the Tags box immediately after Polygon, type a semicolon (;), add a space, then type Zion. Type another semicolon, add a space, and type landownership.

The Tags box should look like this when the tags are entered: Polygon; Zion; landownership.

 

9. The default tool should be Polygon. If it is not, click the Default Tool arrow and click Polygon.

This ensures that the Polygon tool activates each time you choose the Tracts template.

  

10. Click the Ownership field in the grid. System information about the field is listed at the bottom of the dialog box.

 

11. Click <Null> for the value on the right side to clear the text and type Private, which will assign the attribute value Private. This sets Private as the default attribute value for that field for all new features created with this template.

  

12. Click OK.

 

13. Close the Organize Feature Templates dialog box. Notice that the new template is listed in the Create Features window. When you rest your pointer on the template, you see the text you entered for the description.

 

You can also access the properties of a template by double-clicking it in the Create Features window. By default, the templates are grouped and sorted by layer name. If you want to group them differently or filter to hide some of them, you can do so from the Arrange menu at the top of the Create Features window.

 

14. To continue to the next exercise, Exercise 1d: Creating new polygon features.

You are now ready to create features using the properties specified in this feature template.

 

Exercise 1d: Creating new polygon features

About creating polygons

Since you have been exposed to the basic concepts and user interface elements of editing and creating features, you are now ready to learn advanced feature creation techniques. You will use several different

methods to construct the polygon tract boundaries, including snapping, entering measurements, and drawing rectangles. You also will use keyboard shortcuts and right-click menus to improve productivity while creating features.

When Zion National Park became a protected area in the early 1900s, multiple owners held the land that became the park. Although Zion is mostly United States federal government land now, there are some areas within the park that are still owned privately. In this exercise, you will create some boundary lines

representing the privately held features.

Note: The values, shapes, measurements, and attributes in this exercise are for demonstration purposes only and do not reflect the actual property records.

Creating polygons using different construction methods

Prerequisite:

The Exercise1.mxd is open and you are in an edit session.

Choosing a template sets up the editing environment for the settings in that template. This action sets the target layer in which your new features will be stored, activates a feature construction tool at the bottom of the Create Features window, and prepares to assign the default attributes to the new feature. Since the layer's template is set up so the Polygon tool is the default feature construction tool, the Polygon tool becomes active.

By default, the Line and Polygon tools create straight segments between the vertices you click. These tools also have additional ways to define a feature's shape, such as creating curved lines or tracing existing features. These are known as construction methods and are located on the Editor toolbar.

Steps:

1. Turn off the World imagery (Web) layer in the table of contents.

 

2. Zoom to the Tracts bookmark.

 

3. In the Create Features window, click the Tracts template. This activates the Polygon construction tool , which you set as the default tool using the Template Properties.

Since the tracts share an edge with the park boundary and an adjacent tract, you can use them to help you construct the shape of the polygon.

 

4. Click the Straight Segment construction method on the Editor toolbar.

With the Straight Segment construction method, a vertex is placed each time you click, with the segments between vertices being straight lines.

 

5. Snap to the intersection of the park boundary polygon and the tract line feature and click once.

  

6. Move your pointer up (to the north), snap at the corner of the tract and the park boundary, then click again. You now have created two vertices with a straight line connecting them to define the eastern boundary of this tract.

 

7. Click Midpoint on the palette on the Feature Construction mini toolbar, which appeared onscreen near your pointer after you placed the first vertex of the polygon. This changes the active segment construction method from Straight Segment to Midpoint, which creates a vertex in the center of two locations you click. You will use Midpoint to create a vertex between two corners of the existing tract.

  

The buttons to choose a segment construction method on the Feature Construction toolbar are also found on the Editor toolbar, but it is often easier to access them on the Feature Construction toolbar since it is closer to your pointer. If you click a segment construction method on the Feature Construction toolbar, it then becomes active on the Editor toolbar, and vice versa. Two of the most common segment construction methods, Straight Segment and Endpoint Arc Segment, are located directly on the toolbar, but there is a palette to the right of these buttons containing additional methods.

 

8. Move the pointer to the right and click the eastern corner of the tract (the previous vertex you added). As you move the pointer, notice a black line with a small square in the middle. The square indicates where the new vertex will be added.

 

9. Move your pointer to the left and click the western corner of the existing tract. The new vertex is added where the square was located as soon as you click the second point.

  

10. Click the Straight Segment construction method on the Feature Construction mini toolbar.

This changes the active segment construction method back to Straight Segment rather than Midpoint.

 

11. To enter the final measurement for the corner, you need to type a specific coordinate.

 

12. Press the F6 key. This is the keyboard shortcut for Absolute XY, which allows you to type an exact x,y coordinate for the next vertex. By default, the values you enter are in map units, which are meters for this map. If you want to enter values in decimal degrees or other formats, you can click the arrow to change the input boxes.

   

Tip: If you make a mistake and want to cancel out of a sketch constraint, which is a command that limits the placement of the next vertex, you can press the ESC key. Once a vertex is added, you can delete it by pressing the Undo button on either the Feature Construction toolbar or the Standard toolbar.

13. Type 314076.3 in the X: box, type 4138384.9 in the Y: box, then press ENTER. A new vertex is automatically created in that location.

 

14. Click Finish Sketch on the Feature Construction mini toolbar.

You have created the first polygon lot feature. You could also use the F2 key, double-click the map, or right-click to finish the sketch.

 

15. Click the Identify tool on the Tools toolbar.

 

16. Click the new feature and notice that the attribute value for the Ownership field is Private, which is the default value you set in the template's properties.

If you identified a different layer, click the Identify from arrow, click the Tracts layer, then try clicking the feature again.

 

17. Close the Identify window.

Creating rectangular polygons

Sometimes you need to create rectangular polygons. Rather than clicking each vertex individually as you have been doing, you can use the Rectangle construction tool. The first click with the Rectangle tool creates the first vertex, then the second click establishes the "angle" of the rectangle, and the final click adds the remaining corner vertices. In addition, the Rectangle tool allows you to enter x,y coordinates for the vertices, as well as directions and lengths for the sides.

Steps:

1. Click the Pan tool on the Tools toolbar and pan the map slightly to the west so the J-shaped polygon is centered in the display.

 

2. Click the Tracts template, then the Rectangle tool on the Create Features window to make it the active construction tool.

 

3. Snap to the upper left corner of the J-shaped polygon and click to set the first corner of the rectangle.

  

4. Press the D key, type 179 (as in 179 degrees), then press ENTER. This establishes the angle for the rectangle. As you move your pointer around the map, you see a rectangle preview of the feature.

By default, angles are entered in degrees using the polar system, which is measured counterclockwise from the positive x-axis. You can specify a different direction measuring system or unit on the Editing Options dialog box > Units tab.

 

5. Press the W key, type 400, then press ENTER. This is the shortcut to set a width of 400 meters, which are the map units.

  

6. Move your pointer up and to the left so the rectangle is created in the correct position in relation to the existing feature. Press the L key, type 800, then press ENTER. This is the shortcut to set a length of 800 meters.

Tip: In addition to using these keyboard shortcuts, you can right-click to access a menu containing commands for the direction, length, width, and other settings for creating a rectangle.

Creating adjoining polygons

You now need to create one more polygon to fill in the space between these two polygons. You could snap to every vertex, but an easier way is to use the Auto-Complete Polygon tool, which uses the geometry of existing polygons to create new adjacent polygons that do not overlap or have gaps.

Steps:

1. Click the Tracts template, then the Auto-Complete Polygon tool on the Create Features window to make it the active construction tool.

 

2. Snap to the lower left corner of the rectangle you just created and click.

 

3. Move southward, snap to the corner of the original existing J-shaped polygon, and click to add a vertex.

 

4. Click Finish Sketch on the Feature Construction mini toolbar.

When using the Auto-Complete Polygon tool, ArcMap automatically uses the shapes of the surrounding polygons in that layer to create the geometry for the new polygon.

 

5. Click the Editor menu on the Editor toolbar and click Stop Editing.

 

6. Click Yes to save your edits.

 

7. Close ArcMap if you are done working with the tutorial. You do not need to save the map document

 

8. To continue to the next exercise, Exercise 2a: Defining new types of features to create.

The new features have been created with the default attribute values (Private) specified in the template. If you wanted to add other information, such as ID numbers, select the features and type the values into the

Attributes window.