Editing

ArcEdit Commands Arc Commands ArcMap

ArcInfo uses many basic terms that are important to understand before editing your coverage in ArcEdit:

Arc – represents both linear features and the borders of areal features

Node – the endpoints and intersections of arcs

Poly – represents area features; made up of arcs which define the boundary and a label point which links the poly feature to an attribute record in the polygon attribute table

Dangle – dangling node represented by a square symbol, refers to the unconnected node of a dangling arc

Tic – a registration or geographic control point for a coverage; allows coverage coordinates to be registered to a common coordinate system and relates locations of features in a coverage to locations on the Earth’s surface

ArcEdit Commands

To open your file in ArcEdit, follow this procedure:

Mape (coverage name) – defines the extent of the coverage to be displayed

Ec (coverage name) – selects the specified coverage for editing

De (feature class) – defines the feature classes (i.e. arc, point, poly) available in your view

Ef arc – defines the feature class you are editing

Disp 9999 – brings up your display window

Draw – draws your features in the display window

Image (tif file name) - loads a background image to the display

Image on/Image off – turns on or off the image on the display

The following is a table of other ArcEdit commands you will find useful in editing and analyzing your coverage:

COMMAND	DEFINITION	ABBREVIATED COMMAND
Update	Updates your coverage or table to show recent changes or edits
Select	Allows you to point to a feature on the display and sel it for editing	Sel
Select all	Allows you to sel all features on the display at one time	Sel all
Select many	Allows you to sel many features on the display at one time	Sel man
Vertex move	To move a vertex, you sel the vertex on the display that you want to move, press 4, and then point to where you want to move it to.
Vertex add	Allows you to add a vertex to an existing line
Add	Allows you to add features to the current edit feature class
Calculate	Calculates and assigns value to an item	Calc
Nodesnap closest *	You change from a default value the maximum distance between two nodes that can exist without them snapping together to form a pseudonode. To set the tolerance you draw circle on the display with a radius equal to your desired nodesnap distance.
Nodecolor (feature class) (number 1-8)	Changes the color of a feature class. The colors to choose from are assigned a number from 1-8 as follows: 1=white, 2=red, 3=green, 4=blue, 5= cyan, 6=magenta, 7= yellow, 8=orange
Setsymbol edit (number 1-8)	Changes the color of the feature class you are currently editing
Draws	Draws selected items in the display window
Sel all; Unsplit none	Eliminates all psuedonodes in the coverage, which are shared nodes between two connecting line segments collectively shorter than 500 nodes in length.
Spline	Smooths selected arcs by eliminating vertices significantly displaced from their lines’ trajectory
Clean	Automatically updates and corrects polygon attribute table errors
Build	Creates a polygon coverage and polygon attribute table from your selected line coverage
List	Lists a selected feature’s attributes
Create	Creates a new feature coverage or specified file
Directory	Lists the coverages (and their feature classes) and the files in your current directory
Merge	Allows you to sel two polygons and merge them into one
Sel; Put (coverage name)	Copies your selection into a specified coverage
Reselect	Selects a subset of a currently selected set
Aselect	Selects a feature to add to a currently selected set
Backenvironment (feature item(s))	Sets the feature class of the backcoverage you select	BE
Backcoverage (coverage name)	Selects the coverage you want brought up in the background of you current edit coverage. You cannot edit this coverage.	BC
Rectify	Process by which an image or grid is converted from image coordinates to real-world coordinates
Add item	Adds a word (character) or number (integer) label to an attribute table
Transform	Converts coordinates from one coordinate system to another through translation, rotation and scaling
Edgematch	Opens an interactive menu session for edgematching coverages; Edgematching uses rubbersheeting to match features on the edges of coverages

ARC COMMANDS

COMMAND	DEFINITION	ABBREVIATED COMMAND
ArcEdit	Opens ArcEdit	AE
Workspace	Enters directory	W
&Run (file name)	Runs file such as an AML	&R
&sysdir	Lists files
Commands	List all commands available for use
Remove (file name)	Removes files	RM
Create workspace	Creates a folder	CW
Make directory	Makes a new directory to work in	MK DIR
Generate	Adds features to a coverage; coordinates for each feature may be entered from the terminal or a file
Build (poly, line, point, node)	Creates or updates a feature attribute table for a coverage
Register	Initiates an interactive program that allows you to georeference an image

ArcMap

This application is good for quick edits, display, feature attributions and layout creation and can be used by those with little knowledge of more advanced ArcEdit commandline editing.

Open the coverage you want to edit, display or create a layout for using the Open command under the File menu. To add data layers, choose Add Data also from the File Menu. You can turn on or off each map/image layer on your display by using the check boxes. From the File menu you must first select the start editing option before you can modify your coverage. From the Task box select Modify Feature. Also make sure the name of the coverage you are editing appears in the Target Coverage box, for the listed coverage or file is the layer in which the edits are being placed. The Browse toolbar contains your navigation tools while your Editing buttons allows you to make changes to your coverage and add text. After you are finished, select save edits and then stop editing, both from the File menu. The Layout toolbar is added to the interface when you choose Layout View. You can use these tools to select your layout map extent, title, scale, scale bar, legend, north arrow, etc. You can then print your map directly from the File menu to any printer on your network.

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