[GIS] Data frames not showing up in Extent Indicator Property Box

arcgis-10.1arcgis-desktopextentslayouts

I have a data frame showing an overview of a city. I also have multiple data frames showing zoomed in areas. I want to show the extent indicators for my zoomed in areas on my overview data frame. When I got to the Extent indicator tab for the overview I don't have any data frames to add. However when I go to the extent indicator tab for the zoomed in view I can select the overview data frame. This seems a little backwards to me. Has anyone else run into this issue or have any suggestions?
I'm using Arcmap 10.1

Here is a screen shot of what I have set up and where the blow ups are.
enter image description here

All data frames have the same projection and and set to a fixed extent. I just added a new data frame with a larger extent than my overview data frame. The over view extent shows up in the new data frame but none of the other zoomed in views do. The overview is set at a 1:3000 scale and the zoomed in data frames range from 1:100-1:500. For some reason the zoomed in data frames think they can show the extent of the overview. Unfortunately I didn't set up the mxd in the beginning, is there a setting or something that I have missed that might cause this?

Best Answer

I forgot that I had grouped my data frame, north arrow etc. on the zoomed in data frames before trying to add the extent indicator to the overview map. Once I un-grouped I was able to add the extent indicator and the then group everything back together.

Related Solutions

[GIS] Mirror two data frames

As commented by @Baltok:

One method that isn't fully dynamic, is to use a Viewer Window. You could open a viewer on one data frame and zoom around. Then just choose zoom map to viewer to get the other data frame at the same extent. This works alright if the viewer window data frame is only being used for a reference. It also works handy if you have multiple monitors because you can place your viewer window on another screen.

If you require more than this workaround then I recommend that you submit an ArcGIS Idea and post its link here. An existing idea entitled Linked Data Frames does not seem to be what you are after.

[GIS] Clip to Shape & Extent Indicators

The script below will create a new shapefile with a feature representing the extent of each data frame in a map document. The data frame name is saved in a field called DFName. Once you've run this you can add it to your main data frame as a normal layer and exclude it as you would any other (the "Exclude layers..." button).

You'll still need to leave the existing extent indicators on if you want to use leader lines between the dataframes and their extent indicators.

import arcpy
import os

folder = r'C:\Data' # adjust as required

mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument('CURRENT')
dfs = arcpy.mapping.ListDataFrames(mxd)

fc = arcpy.CreateFeatureclass_management(folder, 'extent.shp', "POLYGON", None, "DISABLED", "DISABLED", None)
arcpy.AddField_management(fc, 'DFName', 'TEXT', None, None, 250, "", "NULLABLE", "NON_REQUIRED")  

cur = arcpy.InsertCursor(os.path.join(folder, 'extent.shp'))

for df in dfs:
    extent = df.extent
    array = arcpy.Array()
    array.add(extent.lowerLeft)
    array.add(extent.lowerRight)
    array.add(extent.upperRight)
    array.add(extent.upperLeft)
    array.add(extent.lowerLeft)
    polygon = arcpy.Polygon(array)

    feat = cur.newRow()
    feat.shape = polygon
    feat.DFName = df.name
    cur.insertRow(feat)

    array.removeAll()

del(cur)

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