NWF/DEM Data Editing Extension for ArcView - Introduction

Introduction - How to start editing

The basic procedure you should follow to start editing depends on whether you want to create a new shapefile or work on an existing one. Before you do any editing, you should start by adding any background themes you might want into the View (use the standard ArcView Add Theme button). It is best not to have any library themes in the View or any themes that load from a remote source other than your hard drive or CD-ROM. These themes are slow to draw, and the View will redraw very frequently while you are using the Parcel Editor dialog. Once you have your themes loaded you should enter any surveys you might have into the Survey Entry Dialog.

If you want to create a new shapefile, when you are ready to start drawing your parcels (freehand over a background theme using the mouse or using the surveys you have entered, or both), launch the Parcel Editor, choosing 'make new theme' when prompted to choose an edit theme. When you are done editing you can build the lines into polygons, using the Build button on the Parcel Editor dialog or Main Menu (see also the section on Topology for more on building).

If you want to edit an existing polygon shapefile, you have two courses you can follow depending on the size of your shapefile. If the shapefile is small, you can edit the whole thing, but if it is large you might want to edit only a piece of it because a few of the extension's scripts work exponentially slower on larger shapefiles. If you choose to work on the whole shapefile, you'll need to Unbuild the polygons into lines so you can edit them using the Parcel Editor, and rebuild them into polygons when you're done. If you have a large polygon shapefile and want to edit only part of it to improve performance, you'll need to unbuild part of it into lines, edit the lines using the Parcel Editor, and build the lines into polygons. Then you'll need to Merge the new polygons with the rest of the original shapefile (see also More About Poly to Line Conversion for a description of this somewhat complex task).

If you want to edit an existing line shapefile, you don't need to do any unbuilding; just launch the Parcel Editor and choose the shapefile you want to edit (or start editing a new shapefile).

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Introduction - How to start editing

This document was created by DEM/ NWF. Contact: DEM/ NWF.