Editing capabilities

ArcGIS Drone2Map offers a robust set of editing tools for both feature and raster data that allow you to refine, correct, or enhance layers. Using these tools can help improve the quality and creation of products by eliminating full reprocessing of output products by correcting or masking problematic areas.

What you can edit

In Drone2Map, you can edit specific feature layers that are used in workflows or as display elements. Additionally, raster layers can be manipulated with functions to create outputs. The following is a list of some of the editable layers within Drone2Map:

• Map notes

• Preprocessing tools

• Output raster products

• Inspection features

• GCPs and checkpoints

• Flight data

• Clipping areas

Editing tools

Editing is performed with tools that appear on the ribbon, on editing toolbars, and in panes. Commands on the context menu appear for specific tools, allowing you to perform a variety of related edits, such as the following:

• When creating features, you can create points, lines, polygons, and notes.

• When modifying features, you can move, rotate, scale, and edit vertices.

• When masking features, you can hide areas of features of another layer where they overlap.

• When editing feature attributes, you can update descriptive information for a feature.

• When editing rasters, you can edit pixel values for raster data.

• When specifying an elevation for 3D features, you can assign specific elevation values to 3D features.

• When pasting special features, you can duplicate or replace feature geometry.

Use cases for editing options

For example, a public works department is asked to show the restoration work they have been doing on a local historical park. They captured imagery of the entire neighborhood where the park is located but want to only focus on the park area, not the surrounding homes. With Drone2Map, the organization can use the Clip tool to remove the areas that are not the main focus, shifting the users' attention to the project. This cleans up the results and creates a professional-looking map that can be shared with the public stakeholders.

For another example, police departments help support crowd control at large events. Drone imagery can be used to gather site planning information about a venue. Before sharing map plans with other departments, sensitive information in the imagery must be blocked out. After processing the imagery as a True Ortho within Drone2Map, the imagery can be modified using raster editing tools to obscure and redact any sensitive information. This helps maintain operational security and prevents misuse of confidential information.

For a final example, a construction company is working on a new residential development and recently graded a large portion of the work area. The surface must be assessed for any uneven elevation that could affect structural stability. After collecting drone imagery of the area, Drone2Map is used to generate a DSM to review surface values. Using map notes, they create polygons and text over the observed areas of concern, noting how much additional grading is required. These notes are published as a feature service for the field crews to reference and adjust the development's grading so that it passes further inspections.