Creating a building feature

Using the Buildings tool, you can digitize the building by designating three of the four points. All the buildings automatically complete themselves once three points are drawn. The tool is set to dynamically create building features using the ArcGIS Defense Mapping product specifications for building width and length.

The geometry type of the building feature is determined by the length and width or area of the feature you draw. The conditions that determine the geometry type can be customized in the Property Configuration dialog box on the Buildings tab. You can change the default values to determine which thresholds create point, line, and polygon features. Thresholds can be defined for either the length and width of a feature or for the area; both cannot be used to determine the building's geometry type.

The table below shows the default criteria for determining the geometry types:

Geometry types for buildings and their default sizes

Geometry type	Length	Width
Point	Less than 25 meters	Less than 25 meters
Line	Greater than 25 meters	Less than 25 meters
Polygon	Greater than 25 meters	Greater than 25 meters

When the building feature is created, the Angle of Orientation (AOO), Area (ARE_ or ARA), and ZV2 fields are populated if the field is in the feature class. The area, length/diameter, and width attribute fields are populated based on what is listed in the Length and Width lists on the Attributes tab on the Defense Mapping Properties dialog box.

Note:

If you are using a z-enabled database, the z-values are set to the current z-value.

1. Start ArcMap.
2. On the main menu, click Customize > Toolbars > Production Editing.
3. On the main menu, click Customize > Toolbars > Defense Mapping.
4. On the Defense Mapping toolbar, click Defense Mapping > Options.

   The Property Configuration dialog box appears.

5. Verify that all the building layers selected in the Property Configuration dialog box on the Buildings tab are present in the Table Of Contents window.

   Note:

   At a minimum, a polygon layer must be defined on the Buildings tab. This polygon feature class is used to derive the geometry.

6. Click OK to close the Property Configuration dialog box.
7. Click the Production Start Editing button on the Production Editing toolbar.

   Note:

   The Manage Features and Create Attributes, Update Attributes, or Metadata Attributes windows automatically appear when you start an edit session using the Production Start Editing tool.

   Tip:

   If the Create Attributes, Update Attributes, or Metadata Attributes window does not appear when you start an edit session, click the Show/Hide Attributes button on the Manage Features window.

8. Choose the template to use to create the building feature on the Create tab on the Manage Features window.
9. Click the Buildings button on the Defense Mapping toolbar.

   The cursor changes to a circle with a crosshair.

10. Do one of the following to create a new building:

    To create a simple building feature	Click and drag in the map display to create three points to represent the new building feature; double-click the third point to finish the drawing. Depending on the feature's length and width or area, it will be a point, line, or polygon.
    To create a non-simple building	Click and drag to create more than four points to represent the new building feature, then double-click the last vertex on the building to finish the drawing.

    You must zoom in on the map display to create point features. Lines are created using the longest dimension centered on the middle of the feature.

The new building is created.