Since delivery of the 10.3 version, there are some new ArcMap tools available that deserve to be better known . Here is a series of articles regarding their description. Firstly, we will discuss the “Points to line” tool, You, probably, know the procedure for integrating a table of points, in text format or Excel, as a layer of points in Arcmap . If this is not the case , it will be described a little further in this article. What is less known is that you can as well incorporate tables containing rows as series of points, such as GPS routes. Let’s see for example a bathymetry layer.
The file containing this information is an Excel table such as :
The only difference with a classic scoreboard it is the existence of a field ( here Ident) that allows us to identify the different lines . Therefore , if it does not exist , our procedure will create a single line from the first point up until the last one of the table. By cons if we have a field with the information belonging to a specific line, the procedure will create an independent line for each value of this field. In the above example, a line will be created by using the coordinates of lines 2 to 19 (Ident = 0), then a second line by using the coordinates 20 to 24 (Ident = 1).
Let’s discuss how to do it.
In the first place we have to load the table into Arcmap as a point table following the classical procedure:
Click the Arcmap add data buttom, browse the files to point your Excel file, double-click to open the sheets and select the one containing the data . Note : you can use this same procedure by using a file text csv
In the context menu of the new layer , select DisplayXYdata..
In the settings window, specify which fields include the X and Y coordinates, and the coordinate system used .
You will get a warning message indicating that the layer does not include an internal identifier . Click OK
The event layer in the form of points is displayed .
Let’s go back to the warning message . Perhaps ESRI will think to solve this problem . But for the time being , the layer created can be displayed but cannot serve as input of almost no treatment . You will get an error message indicating that the treatment cannot be performed because of the lack identifier .
Therefore, we have to save our XY events layer as a shapefile or a geodatabase table: Right click on the XY Events Layer> Data-> Export Data
The resulting layer including the internal identifiers, is displayed .
It’s on this layer where we will use the Points to lines tool of the Toolbox. Go to Toolbox ->DataManagement->GametoolsEntities-> Pointstolines
Select the input layer and name the output layer.
You have three optional parameters.
If none is filled in , the tool will create a single line , starting with the first record till the last recording .
If you set a line field field, the tool will create an independent line for each value different from this field.
If you set a field sort field , the table will be first sorted in function of the values of this field, before building the lines.
The option Close Line , will create automatically a segment between the first point and the last point of a line . You can, then, use the entities towards polygons tool and create surfaces from your layer of lines .
The three options can be used jointly or not . In all cases, the order of execution is :
- sorting records following the Sort field , if is informed ;
- creating lines by cutting the Line field field, if is informed ;
- the closure of each line by creating the last point segment – first point
Here is the result of the tool on our example :
am new and like to learn…but thanks