Edge Analysis Tool

Download tool: Edge_Analysis.tbx

The Edge Analysis tool is a new Arc Toolbox command, implemented by importing a toolbox (.tbx) file into the users’ standard Arc Toolbox. This is accomplished by right clicking on the standard Arc Toolbox and selecting “Add Toolbox”.

The Edge Analysis tool requires no Administrative privileges, setup/install programs or installation of any files other than the .tbx file itself – it is completely self-contained.  ArcGIS 10 is required to utilize the tool.

Once the toolbox is imported the command is ready to use and will function just as any other Arc Toolbox command. This tool input a polygon “Edge” shapefile and a polygon “Area of Interest” shapefile and outputs a line shapefile in the outline of the “Area of Interest” with the edge attributes from the “Edge” shapefile.

For example: a Land Cover polygon shapefile could be used as the “Edge” shapefile, the “Edge Field” is selected (a field from the Land Cover shapefile, e.g LCU_TYPE), and a Lake outline shapefile is entered as the “Area of Interest”. In this case the tool would output a Line shapefile which would be the outline of the lake, attributed with LCU_TYPE from the Land Cover shapefile. The user would then be able to see which Land Cover types bordered the lake, and the sum of their edge lengths.

Notes on Using the Tool:

The output shapefile will be named the same as the input shapefile with a “_edgi” appended to the end of the filename (input = test.shp, output = test_edgi.shp) . The output shapefile will reside in the same directory as the input shapefile. The input shapefile will not be modified.

Rename your output file prior to rerunning the program with the same input “Edge” shapefile.

The units in the “Length” field are MAPUNITS. Check the layer’s projection to identify what the units are.

The program writes several intermediate files to the directory in which the input “Edge” shapefile exists and then removes all of these unessential files if the program runs successfully, leaving only the output “[input_name]_edgi.shp” shapefile. If, however, the program fails, files may be left in this directory. If the program fails manually delete the files: [input_name]_edg.shp, [input_name]_edgdis1.shp, [input_name]_edgdis2.shp, [input_name]_edgu.shp

Below is an example of using the program: