Create Polygon Feature Class from Uncovered Areas in ArcGIS Desktop

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I am working on a project doing spatial analysis at a statewide level. I am looking at a form of transportation coverage in a state, and part of my analysis involves buffers and drive time polygons. I am using a geodatabase (therefore ArcGIS) for all my work, so new features will be exported as feature classes in feature datasets.

To visualize: I have said state border, and some dissolved buffer rings around some points, and they cover parts of the state. I want to create a feature class for the parts of the state these buffer rings don't cover, AKA gap areas.

Is there a tool I can use or create to do this?

I know I could draw them in manually in editor, but I am unsure if that's the most precise way to generate these feature classes. To me, I am thinking this operation would be like an inverted "Clip" in that I take the two layers, and instead of pulling out the clipped area, it would take everything not in the clipped area.

I am using a Desktop Basic license.

Best Answer

Erase is the tool for this in ArcGIS.

http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//00080000000m000000

Kind of like an "opposite clip"

You need a higher level license to do this.

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[GIS] Using one polygon from feature class as clip feature in ArcGIS for Desktop

If you have an active selection on your census boundaries dataset, when you run the clip tool on another dataset, it will be clipped to the extent of the selected census boundary feature. If you were to select multiple features in the Census feature class, the input features would be clipped to the shape of all census areas selected

Using this method will save you having to create layers from a selection.

To make sure the process is clear:

Make a selection on the Census feature class (red features in image below - selection highlighted blue.
Open the Clip tool.
Choose the feature class you would like to be clipped in the 'Input Features' box of the Clip tool window (Black polygons with blue shading below).
Choose the Census feature class (which has an active selection) as the 'Clip Features'.
Set your 'Output Feature Class'.
Click 'OK'

[GIS] Copying feature from one feature class to another without creating new feature class using ArcGIS Desktop

The Append tool:

Appends multiple input datasets into an existing target dataset. Input datasets can be point, line, or polygon feature classes, tables, rasters, raster catalogs, annotation feature classes, or dimensions feature classes.

For one ArcPy example its Help has:

import arcpy
arcpy.env.workspace = "C:/data/"
arcpy.Append_management(["north.shp", "south.shp", "east.shp", "west.shp"], "wholecity.shp", "TEST","","")

If you need only a subset of features from a feature class then precede Append with the Select tool.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[GIS] Using one polygon from feature class as clip feature in ArcGIS for Desktop

[GIS] Copying feature from one feature class to another without creating new feature class using ArcGIS Desktop

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