[GIS] Make a polygon out of a polygon’s hole

Question

I have a large polygon with many vertices that has a hole in its center. I want a polygon of the hole, the empty space. How can I do that, as it is much too complicated to digitize manually?

Answer 1

This is a two-step procedure with ArcGIS. This method is also suited for automating with ModelBuilder or Python.

1. Eliminate Polygon Part (Data Management). Use this to fill the polygon hole. For this example I specified 50% as the condition in the tool parameters
2. Erase (Analysis). Erase the newly created polygon with the original polygon to get the polygon of the hole