About joining parcels to the parcel fabric

This topic applies to ArcEditor and ArcInfo only.

When new parcels are created in the parcel fabric, the parcels are created as floating parcels in the map extent. A newly created parcel is not yet connected to the parcel fabric layer, even if existing fabric points were used as from or to points in the creation of the parcel. Newly created parcels need to be joined to the parcel fabric to be connected to the parcel fabric. Since parcels can be created as floating geometries or floating features, this allows the data entry of parcels without the knowledge of coordinates, points of beginning, or spatial references. All that is required to enter a parcel in the parcel fabric are the recorded dimensions from the plan or record of survey.

Tip:

Parcels can be entered in the data frame of the map display or in a separate, local coordinate system data frame. You can choose how to enter your parcels in the Parcel Editor Options dialog box under Parcel view behavior. The Parcel Editor Options dialog box can be accessed from the Parcel Editor menu on the Parcel Editor toolbar.

Parcel Editor Options dialog box

Parcel joining is an interactive process where the parcel points of a floating parcel or group of parcels are matched with their corresponding points in the parcel fabric.

Parcel joining

Establishing join links

Join links are established between the join parcel's points and the corresponding points in the parcel fabric. Failure to establish a join link between a join parcel point and its matching fabric point will result in duplicate points for the same location. Overlapping points compromise the topological connectivity of the parcel fabric and may result in a less than optimal solution in a fabric least-squares adjustment.

Learn more about maintaining the topological structure of the parcel fabric

Join links can be manually created or created by dragging a box around the two points you want to join. To manually create a join link, the Join A Parcel Or Group Of Parcels tool is used to snap to the joining parcel's point and snap to the corresponding point in the fabric.

Manually create join link

Join links can also be automatically created by dragging a box around the two points you want to join. The Create A Join Link Using A Dragbox tool is used to drag a box around the points to be joined.

Drag a box to create a join link

Join residuals

As each parcel point is matched with its corresponding fabric point, a set of join residuals, a scale, and a rotation are recomputed and displayed in the Join Parcel dialog box.

Join residuals, scale, and rotation

Join residuals are computed from a transformation between the joining parcel's points and the corresponding points in the parcel fabric. If only two points are joined, a Helmert transformation is used. If more than two points are joined, a least-squares transformation is used. Each time another point is joined, join residuals, scale, and rotation are recalculated.

Join residuals are an indication of how well the unjoined parcel fits with the surrounding parcel fabric. Large join residuals may result from a situation where the parcel being joined is more accurate than the surrounding parcel fabric. Large residuals may occur when the surrounding parcel fabric has been migrated from digitized data and the parcel being joined has been entered from the survey record. Large join residuals could also indicate an error in the dimensions of the parcel being joined.

Auto-joining

After at least two join links have been established, the Auto Join button on the Join Parcel dialog box can be clicked to detect remaining links.

Auto-join uses the transformation parameters from the existing established join links and applies them to all other points in the parcel group to detect other possible join lines. If there is a large difference in accuracy between the parcels being joined and the surrounding fabric, you may need to establish a few more join lines for auto-join to correctly detect remaining join links.

Auto-join will also detect line point join links. A line point join link occurs when a parcel point is joined to a parcel line.

Line point join link

The auto-join process uses the Auto-join settings tolerance located under the Tolerance tab on the Parcel Editor Options dialog box when detecting line points. You can edit this tolerance to suit the quality of your data. For example, a small tolerance of about 0.3 feet can be used if data quality is good.

Auto-join settings

Note:

Specifying an auto-join settings tolerance that is too large might result in incorrectly joined line points and parcel points.

If no match is found between a joining parcel's point and a point in the parcel fabric, the point will simply be transformed using the transformation parameters from the existing join lines.

Appending parcels in parcel fabric XML format

Parcels can be appended and joined to the fabric layer from parcel fabric XML files.

Append a parcel fabric XML file

You can also save selected parcels to parcel fabric XML files by clicking the Parcel Editor menu and clicking Save as XML. In an open fabric job, the Save as XML command will save all parcels in the job to a parcel fabric XML file. Saving parcels to XML files allows exporting parcels from and importing parcels to the parcel fabric.

Save parcels to XML

The structure of a parcel fabric XML file essentially reflects the structure of the parcel fabric data model.

Parcel fabric data model and XML structure

Parcel fabric XML files are also in the same file format as the fabric job XML file.