Starting and stopping a 3D edit session

Available with 3D Analyst license.

About starting a 3D edit session

Edit sessions allow you to create or modify vector features or tabular attribute information. To edit, you must first start the edit session on a specified set of data. Edits are temporary until you choose to save and apply them permanently to your data, so when you finish editing, you can choose to save or discard your edits. You can also apply your edits at any time during an edit session by clicking Save Edits; this also keeps the edit session active.

Editing applies to a single workspace, where a workspace is a geodatabase or a folder of shapefiles. If you have data from more than one workspace in your scene or globe document, you will be prompted to choose the workspace that you want to edit.

Another way of starting editing is to right-click a layer in the table of contents, and click Edit Features > Start Editing. This starts an edit session on the workspace containing that layer. For example, if you right-click a layer from a geodatabase and start editing it, you are able to edit all the other layers from that same geodatabase.

Things to consider before starting an edit session

Although you can edit data in different coordinate systems in ArcScene, it is generally best if all the data you plan to edit together has the same coordinate system as the scene document. An important consideration, specifically for 3D data, is the choice of your z-units. Preferably, the z-units of your data should be the same as your x- and y-units.

ArcGlobe does not allow you to specify a coordinate system that differs from the WGS84/cube projection, so all geometry edits done in ArcGlobe will be projected on the fly from geographic coordinates into the feature's source database projection (with a potential loss in precision).

Also, before you begin an edit session, make sure that the layer properties, such as base heights, extrusion, and symbology, are set for the features in your display. You cannot modify layer properties when the layer is participating in an active 3D edit session. These properties are used to drive the behavior of several editing tools, and if you were to modify them in the middle of an edit session, it may lead to unexpected results. Therefore, Layer Properties will be unavailable on the feature's context menu during an edit session.

How to start and stop an edit session

1. Click the 3D Editor menu on the 3D Editor toolbar and click Start Editing.
2. If your document contains editable data from more than one geodatabase or folder, choose the workspace that you want to edit and click OK.
The Create Features window opens, listing the editable layer from the selected workspace.
3. Click the 3D Editor menu again when you have completed your edits, and click Stop Editing.
If you have made any edits since the last time you saved edits, click Yes to save them. Clicking No discards the edits.

Note:

• The Start Editing command on the 3D Editor drop-down menu will be unavailable until you add editable feature data to your scene or globe.
• To learn more about edit sessions and the types of messages or errors you might encounter when you start editing, see About edit sessions in the "Editing data" help section for ArcMap.