Name:
Repeating Shapes
for ArcGIS (Click
Name to Download)
AKA: repeat_shapes.exe
Last Modified: August 13, 2006
View Online PDF Manual (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)
View and Download Repeating Shapes Poster
Topics: hexagon, square, triangle, repeat, sample, tessellation, array, matrix, lattice, point, systematic, grid, extent
Author: Jeff Jenness
Wildlife Biologist, GIS Analyst
Jenness Enterprises
3020 N. Schevene Blvd.
Flagstaff, AZ, 86004 USA
(928) 607-4638
Description: Researchers and land managers often require a way to systematically divide the landscape into equal-sized portions. Breaking up the landscape this way simplifies monitoring plans, and is an essential step in developing systematic sampling designs.
This tool generates an array of repeating shapes over a user-specified area. These shapes can be hexagons, squares, triangles, circles or points, and they can be generated with any directional orientation.
Shapes can be generated over all selected records of a feature theme, over the entire rectangular extent of a theme, over the rectangular extent of all themes in the view, or over the rectangular extent of the display.
For those who have access to ArcView 3.x, this extension can be used in conjunction with the
“Random Point Generator” extension (http://www.jennessent.com/arcview/random_points.htm)
to generate random points within a systematically divided sampling area.
This extension can be used to generate systematic polygons over the
landscape, and the “Random Point Generator” extension can then be used
to generate random sample points within those polygons.
Output: This extension produces either a point or a polygon
shapefile and adds it as a theme to the view.
Recommended Citation Format: For those who wish to cite this extension, the author recommends something similar to:
Jenness, J. 2006. Repeating shapes for ArcGIS. Jenness Enterprises. Available at: http://www.jennessent.com/arcgis/repeat_shapes.htm.
Please let me know if you cite this extension in a publication. I will update the citation list to include any publications that I am told about.
Requires: ArcView 9.x (will also work at ArcEditor and ArcInfo license levels). This tool has only been tested on Windows 2000 and XP.
General Instructions:
1) This tool must be installed in the Windows registry before ArcGIS will recognize it. To install, double-click on the file “repeat_shapes.exe” and follow the instructions.
2) After installing Repeating Shapes, open ArcMap and then open the “Customize” window (either by clicking the “Customize” menu item in the “Tools” menu, or by simply double-clicking on a blank portion of the button bar):
3) Click on the “Commands” tab and scroll down until you see the “Jenness Enterprises” category:
4) In the “Jenness Enterprises” category, find the command named “Repeating Shapes”. Simply drag this command up to your button bar. IMPORTANT: If you want the Repeating Shapes button to always be available whenever you open ArcMap, make sure you have “Normal.mxt” selected in the bottom right corner of the dialog. If you only want Repeating Shapes to be available within this particular map document, change the selection to your map document (which should be right under “Normal.mxt” in the drop-down box).
5) Close the “Customize” dialog box and you will be ready to go.
For detailed instructions, view the on-line PDF version of
Repeating Shapes
Manual
Enjoy! Please contact the author if you have problems or find bugs.
Jeff Jenness jeffj@jennessent.com
Jenness Enterprises http://www.jennessent.com
3020 N. Schevene Blvd.
Flagstaff, AZ 86004
USA
Please visit Jenness Enterprises ArcGIS Tools site for more ArcGIS tools and other software by the author. We also offer GIS consultation services for both ArcGIS and ArcView 3.x to help you meet your specific data analysis and application development needs.
