I have about 20 shapefiles that contain contours lines, and I'm trying to convert them to one TIN using Spatial Analyst in ArcGIS 9.3. I included all of the SHP's as input to generate a TIN, but it didn't work. I have tried with hard line, soft line, and mass points options, but nothing is working.
I think if I first created a single contour shapefile from the 20 then I would be able to generate a TIN. My question is: how can I create 1 contour layer from the original 20, or how can I create one TIN from multiple shapefiles?
Best Answer
So, if you have each contour line saved as a separate shapfile, the simplest way to combine them into one shapefile is the Merge tool. Whether this will work properly depends on how your individual contours are created (See GeoKevin's comment below), but it's an easy place to start.