Hi All,

I am working with a drawing of areas/polygons. I want to manually edit a few of the polygons by moving their nodes around. Is it possible to select an area, move its nodes and have the nodes of the adjoining polygons come with it? So I don't need to move the nodes of adjoining areas to match to the newly edited area? Is there a setting I can check to say if I move the node of Area.1 then any shared node in Area.2 would also be moved? I don't want to create any gaps when I am editing.

If not how do I get the nodes to snap? None of the Snap To.. functions allow you to snap the nodes of one polygon to the nodes of another polygon.

Thank you!

None of the Snap To.. functions allow you to snap the nodes of one polygon to the nodes of another polygon.

Snap to Area allows you to snap nodes (one at time) of an Area to any Area node.

As for your problem one way I do this is to draw a Line along the new Area boundary and use this line to split the Areas, I then use the Union Transform to combine the relevant Areas.

I like the idea of the ability to use ctrl+alt+select on multiple Lines/Areas and be able apply move or delete on coincident nodes.

Chat with Manifold users on IRC Server: irc.freenode.net, Channel: #planetmanifold, IRC FAQ

TMO this currently is not possible. But it's an interesting feature request to work with a multiselection other than complete objects.

How should it be done? We now toogle between single-inflection-point-editing and all-selected-objects-editing by SHIFT. How would you select a group of inflecion points of one or (why not) many selected objects? AutoCAD solves this by a box selection that displays all affected objets as completely selected and that might be OK for Mfd, too.

In Mfd I think every area selections mode (shape, freeform, box, circle, ...) should be possible but any active mode in Selection Toolbar now inhibits you from moveing objects or inflection points in edit mode. So the simple fact that a selection was done or extended by an active area selection tool in editmode together with SHIFT could be interpreted as the command to move all inflection points inside of the previously selected area.

It's important to have the possibility to deselect complete objects from the set before the partial move can start and it's important to be able to cancel moving if you recognize an erroneous selection only after starting to move and see the affected object parts sticking to the pointer. ESC would be the prefered key to cancel operation.

I could imagine the Shared Edits mode to extend the multiselection over all layers in a map whose mouse edits and mouse selection is enabled in layer restrictions.

Puh, a nice idea but a lot you have to think about for a complete feature request.

The script attached to this thread might be helpful for now.

I have no idea what you just said.....

I used to use MapInfo and it was just a matter of going into the option and clicking a checkbox to move the nodes of adjoining polygons or just the nodes of the selected polygon.

The Snap To Area just snaps to any edge of a polygon and not the nodes of the polygon.

So is there no way to even snap the node of one polygon to the node of another polygon????

Yes - Snap to Area allows you to snap nodes (one at time) of an Area to any Area node.

Chat with Manifold users on IRC Server: irc.freenode.net, Channel: #planetmanifold, IRC FAQ

The Snap To Area just snaps to any edge of a polygon and not the nodes of the polygon.

Are you using Snap to Segments along with Snap to Areas by any chance? Just use Snap to Areas only to snap to nodes.

Chat with Manifold users on IRC Server: irc.freenode.net, Channel: #planetmanifold, IRC FAQ

Thank you I will try this....

Update: Yes that worked! I did have Segments active

Good that you got it to work out. Don't be shy to send your suggestions for improvements to Manifold, the more voices asking for the same new features or improvements will get noticed.

See: Suggestions for New Features.

Chat with Manifold users on IRC Server: irc.freenode.net, Channel: #planetmanifold, IRC FAQ

Sorry to be unclear but as I lack any knowledge of MapInfo...

Have you activated menu->Edit->Shared Edits? It's just ment for this situation but only applys to

(1) one inflection point (Mfd term for your 'node') at a time

(2) fitting coordinates checked by Normalize Topology

--

As Brain stated you CAN snap to inflection points. Perhaps you have to deselect Snap to Segments

WOOOOOHOOOOO!! That is exactly what I wanted!! THANK YOU!!

Well what do you know, how many years have I been using Manifold and I didn't know about that

Cheers Klaus.

Chat with Manifold users on IRC Server: irc.freenode.net, Channel: #planetmanifold, IRC FAQ

Agghhh, me too! Wish I had figured that out earlier...

I would argue slightly with the "one inflection point".

Suppose you have two areas with two points in common. If you CTRL-ALT click on one area object and then SHIFT drag one of the inflection points, the entire area moves. This changes both common points with the other area as well.

In more complex drawings, it will also move other objects as needed that have shared points with the first area. In this case it is moving many inflection points at one time.

EDIT:

In the above, the shape of the dragged object remains the same and all others will be changed.

However, if you select more than one object before moving one, the shape of all selected objects remains the same and any unselected ones will be changed.

That's how it is now. But imagine you have digitized a house in the surrounding parcel and a way leading towards the front. But you find the house is too short, you would like to elongate it moving two edges away from the other two edged together with the way leading to the front door. You often face this situation when some workers in the field have used different anchor points.

Now draw a selection box around one side of the building including the endpoints of the way and select all inflection points intersecting the box but not those at the other end of the build and move them - only those coordinates of house, parcel and way that intersected the Select Box while the rest, the outer boundary of the parcel, the other edges of the house and the way where it meets the street in front of the parcel just stay where they are. That is what you can have with AutoCAD and that is what I thought MrFurly whas after and what I miss every now and than. A multiselection of inflection points belonging to different objects, not of complete objects. In general I would say that all sorts of flexible multiselections in each and every part of the GUI would be the next step enhancing usability.

Klaus, multiselection move/delete of inflection points within objects and involving shared inflection points in other objects in other layers will be a very nice addition. What do you think is a good way to show the user where points are shared?

Don't know how AutoCad does it, but here's an idea that might have some merit. Create an option (ie checkbox for the layer) to display only potions of a layer's objects that do not lie exactly under objects in another layer placed above. If this could be accomplished then it would be a quick way to tell if the topology is sound between objects since one can easily set line styles/widths/colors so that the bottom object is visible under the top object.

For the case of working with objects within a layer, once an object is placed into Edit mode, its line/border width could made to become very thin relative to the rest of the layer. If the topology is sound between the objects than you would just see the thin line. If the topology was not exactly matching than the thin line would have the thicker background line of the adjacent object show. I hope this description is clear.

This option would also create a nice cartographic option. We currently maintain a seperate "boundary" line layer to display the portion of parcel, subdivision, lots, town limits, section lines, tax district lines, etc. that lie on top. This allows setting line styles/colors/widths as desired without worry about how they might effect one another as would be the case if we tried to display the individual layers themselves on top of one another. This proposed option would avoid the need to maintain this separate layer.

Another thought. When in edit mode, it can be impossible to tell if two or more inflection points are present when not zoomed way in. Maybe the edit handles could change shape when they are too close together to clearly display them individually.

Thanks Sunsong for the good idea (post below) of creating a line to move several inflection points at once.

some good ideas.

They would be useful addtitions

I agree it would be good to have that capability in the GUI.

A couple of ways to achieve what you describe with what's currently available:

1. Draw a line snapped to the points you wish to move, then select and drag that line. Only the coords coincident with the line will move, the house and pathway will change shape.

Manifold cannot select the vertices that define an object and manipulate them with the same power as is provided for working with the "object"'s attributes.

cuda shuda wuda

MrFurly,

What you are looking for is "Shared Edit". It's under the Edit menu, or Ctrl-E. That will do exactly what you want.

Does anyone else wish that Shared Edit had an indicator in the status bar similar to the one for Snap? I have frequently had Shared Edit on when I didn't want it or vice versa.

It's an old feature request of mine. It's so dangerous to edit when you'r not sure about the current state that it's impossible for me to toggel Shared Edit with the Key while working and it would be so useful.

Along the same line it would be so useful to toggle state of Snap to Segments by key during editing. In this case we don't need an indicator in status bar as we can see the Sapping Toolbar button state. Not so with Shared Edits.

Klaus,

absolute, total and complete agreement

I've just sent a wishlist email to sales for both of these.

In MapInfo when two nodes are shared and snapped between two polygons when you are in edit mode those nodes are a different colour than those not shared by other polygons. It is a quick and easy way to make sure you are moving the correct nodes and maintaining a "gap free" editing session.

In Manifold with the Shared Edits button checked I am finding I still have to first click Snap To Areas and click on all the nodes I want to move before Shared Edits will move the shared nodes. I realize this is probably a result of my data topology but since the shapefile that I imported had all these shared nodes snapped I would think I wouldn't have to do this step. I am new to Manifold so maybe I am missing another simple step.

Welcome Mr Furly,

You are not missing anything.

Shared Edit requires nodes/coordinates to be coincident. You do not have to have snap to areas "on" in order to move coincident nodes. If you are moving a node in one area and what you believe to be the coincident node in an adjacent area doesn't move, it is almost certain your drawing's topology is not optimal. Check your drawing's precision, consider running normalize topology transform (topology isn't inherently a feature of desktop mapping applications such as MapInfo or ArcView, but check the doco of the source application to be sure) and try again. If you have multi-branched objects which you'd like to maintain (e.g. islands), make sure that "tools/options/miscellaneous/split branched objects after transforms" is unchecked.

The MapInfo feature you describe

two nodes are shared and snapped between two polygons when you are in edit mode those nodes are a different colour than those not shared by other polygons

is an excellent one. Manifold are always keen to receive good ideas for enhancements - might be an appropriate one. See the "Technical Support" topic in help, or search this forum for tips on how to make such suggestions.

Thank you!

I have to say the more I use Manifold and become familiar with it the more I like it. I am so pleased with how stable the software is. I have not had a single crash since I started using Manifold back in May. ArcView crashes on me at least 2 or 3 times a day! I have been doing a lot of editing that involves dissolving polygons and when I attempted to Merge polygons in ArcView my DBF file was constantly corrupting and losing records and not combining others. Manifold has sailed through this process. I am really happy I chose Manifold!! And thanks for all the help, this is a great GIS community!

When using Shared Edit, intuitively I expect inserting or deleting nodes on the current area to add or delete identical nodes on the adjacent polygon. Is there a setting to cause this to occur?

Not that I've seen. Sounds like another excellent feature request.

... again an old one of mine. Please join us. BTW what I did like with ArcView 3 was that a way it snaped all of the inflection points of a touched area to neighbouring points in range of tolerance when you edited one of them. Perhaps not what you expect from the general way Manifold deals with single-inflection-point editing but just what I seem to need most of the time.

the shared edit concept is covered in the www.gisadvisor.com training for Introduction to Manifold 8. The topic in the training is called Editing Objects.