2 Geographic Data Management

Creating feature classes and tables

Feature classes and tables are two of the basic datasets in a geodatabase. Feature classes store geographic features of the
same type and their associated attributesfor example, youd create one feature class for roads, another for streams,
and a third for parcels. Standalone tables store additional descriptive information that can be related to the geographic
features. When building a geodatabase structure (or schema) from a design, after creating the geodatabase youll create
and dene the empty feature classes and tables. You rst create the empty feature class or table. You then dene any
additional elds containing descriptive data. Later youll add data to the datasets by importing or editing.
Creating a feature class

Feature classes contain both the geometric shapes of each feature as well as their descriptive attributes.

To create a feature class, rightclick the geodatabase in the

Catalog tree, point to New, and
click Feature Class.

ArcGIS uses the

tolerance to evaluate
if features connect or
overlap. X,Y coordinates
within the tolerance
distance are considered
to be coincident. The
default tolerance is an
effective choice in most
cases.

Conguration keywords

Enter a name for the

table or feature class,
and an optional alias.
Then dene the type of

feature.

are used to handle

special data storage
needs. For example,
if your database will
be larger than 1GB or
if you need to store
attributes containing
Chinese or Japanese
characters, youd specify
the appropriate keyword
(these are specic to

each DBMS). Otherwise,

choosing Default is a
suitable option.
Dene the coordinate

system for the feature

class. Select a
predened coordinate

system, import one from

an existing dataset, or
dene a new one.

New feature classes

have a default ObjectID
eld and a Shape eld
that species the type

of feature (point, line,

or polygon). This dialog
box is where you specify
additional elds, by

typing the name and

data type in an empty
row.

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Using ArcGIS Desktop

Feature classes store features in vector format. Vector data is often used to represent features that have a discrete
location in spacesuch as wells, streets, rivers, states borders, and parcel boundariesas opposed to being continuous
across space, such as elevation or rainfall, often represented using rasters (see Managing raster datasets in a
geodatabase in this chapter). The most common vector types are points, lines, polygons. Annotation, which is used to
label features, is also stored as feature classes (see Creating and editing annotation in Chapter 3). Multipoints are often
used to manage arrays of very large point collections, such as LiDAR data. Multipatches are a 3D geometry used to
represent the outer surface of buildings or other objects having volume.
You can also specify whether the feature class includes Z or M values. Z values are most commonly used to represent
elevations, but they can represent other surface measures. M values are used to interpolate distances along linear
features, such as along roads, streams, or pipelines. A common example is a highway milepost measurement system.
The coordinate system for each dataset is for georeferencing. It can be imported from an existing dataset, or you can
create a custom coordinate system by dening its properties (youll likely either import a coordinate system or select
a predened one). Most organizations use one coordinate systemappropriate for their geographic locationfor all
their data. Feature classes can also be created within a feature dataset in the geodatabase (see the next section, Ensuring
spatial data integrity). In this case, the spatial reference will be dened for the feature dataset, so you dont need to

specify it.

Use the Import option to assign the

feature class the coordinate system
of an existing dataset.

Use the New option to dene the

parameters of a geographic or
projected coordinate system.

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