Parcel Editor - The Builder Button
Builder button
The Builder button allows you to turn a properly edited line theme into a polygon theme. This function is analogous to ARC/INFO's BUILD function, although it is much slower and not as powerful. You can also incorporate attributes attached to labelpoints into the resulting polygons. The line theme must be 'clean' to be built (see the section on
'topology'
for details). As it currently stands, the Build function cannot detect intersect errors; that is, if your lines cross each other, the program will build them anyway and you will not get topologically correct polygons. There is a
line intersection detection function
on the Parcel Editor dialog that you can run to test for these; be aware that it gets exponentially slower the larger your shapefile is.
As experienced GIS users know, polygons have many properties that are essential for display and analysis and the ability to create them from lines is important for data development. The build function works on the first active theme and will test your line theme for certain basic conditions before trying to build it (it can't be editable and can't have any dangles). The build button is located on both the Parcel Editor dialog and the Main Menu dialog.
This document was created by
DEM/
NWF.
Contact: DEM/
NWF.