3

I have a text file containing the projected coordinates of the points that define a single polygon. The X, Y coordinates are separated by Tab

Is there a tool in ArcGIS similar to "Add X,Y Data" in ArcMap, that can be used to automatically create polygons FC, not point FC?

I use ArcGIS 10.1 for Desktop.

Ligia
  • 1,476
  • 6
  • 28
  • 46
  • Possible duplicate: http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/20020/points-to-polygon – Maksim Aug 26 '14 at 12:30
  • 1
    There is an ArcGIS Idea for this - search on "ungenerate" (the opposite tool is also mentioned). – PolyGeo Aug 26 '14 at 12:37
  • 1
    If you have an ArcInfo license, then you can use the Minimum Bounding Geometry (Data Management tool to create a convex hull (ref. http://gis.stackexchange.com/a/39/15768) from your points. – Erica Aug 26 '14 at 12:42
  • Erica, wouldn't that be a two-step process? 1) Create points FC - 2) Create polygon using the Points FC. I was looking for a single tool that can automatically do that, so should I assume there isn't any? Thank you – Ligia Aug 26 '14 at 12:53

2 Answers2

10

There isn't any tool to do this in 1 single step, you should either:

  1. convert your text file to points
  2. convert points to lines with Points to Line
  3. convert lines to polygons with Feature to Polygon (Advanced licnese required)

Or:

Use arcpy :) - no specific license required.

See an example at the bottom of the page Writing geometries. The code converts a list of coordinates (a text file can be regarded as such a list) into polylines, you can easily modify it to create polygons.

GISGe
  • 9,674
  • 19
  • 41
1

On the ArcGIS Idea website, someone suggested this toolbox http://resources.arcgis.com/gallery/file/geoprocessing/details?entryID=F25C5576-1422-2418-A060-04188EBD33A9 that has a tool called "Create features from text File", which can automatically create point, lines and polygons Feature Classes from text files containing coordinates. Worked for me.

Ligia
  • 1,476
  • 6
  • 28
  • 46