TECH NOTES

The following technical notes provide information regarding certain aspects of VLS' Feature Analyst^® software that demand special attention. If you have additional questions, feel free to contact VLS via email.

For software-specific information, select the GIS platform that your Feature Analyst software plugs into:

ArcGIS

ERDAS IMAGINE

GeoMedia

SOCET SET

ArcGIS

Feature Analyst does not appear in the extension list (ArcGIS 8.3-9.2).

Can I use the Combine tool without an image in the viewer or data frame?

I can’t get my files to combine with the Combine tool.

The License Manager option on toolbar is greyed out.

The Set Up Learning window is cut off.

The Feature Analyst toolbar disappears and cannot be added with the ArcMap toolbar option.

Feature Analyst for ArcGIS has conflict with LPS in IMAGINE.

“Memory exception” errors during Feature Analyst processing.

"Null" data values as background values are not handled correctly in Feature Analyst.

If Feature Analyst does not appear in the extension list (ArcGIS 8.3-9.2), follow these steps:

1. Check that .NET 1.1 is installed

• Go to Start>>Control Panel>>Add/Remove Programs
• Verify .NET 1.1 is present
• If not present, then click here to download
• Install .NET 1.1

2. Check to see if ArcGIS ArcObjects.NET API is installed

• Open the Control Panel
• Open the Add/Remove Programs Admin
• Select the "ArcGIS Desktop" program entry
• Click "Change"
• Locate the ArcGIS Desktop setup disc (this may not be necessary if the disk is already in the CD drive or if you installed from a network location)
• Select the "Modify" option in the application maintenance screen
• Click "Next"
• In the "Features to install" tree, look under the "Application" node. There should be a sub-node labeled: ".NET Support". If there IS a red X icon next to it, then the ArcObjects.NET API has not been installed. In this case, go to step 3

If there is NOT a red X, then the ArcObjects.NET API has already been installed and there is another issue with your computer. In this case, you should contact Visual Learning Systems technical support at our toll-free number: (866) 968-7857, extension 291.

3. Add the ArcObjects.NET API feature to ArcGIS

• Click the drop-down icon next to the ".NET Support" feature
• Select the "Will be installed on the local hard drive" option
• Click "Next"
• Click "Next" on the "Ready to Modify Application" page
• Click "Finish" on the "Successfully installed" window

4. In ArcMap,look under “Tools>>Extensions.” Click the check box next to Feature Analyst 4.1 to activate the extension, then close the extension window. Right-click in the toolbar area of ArcMap and turn on the Feature Analyst 4.1 toolbar. You are now finished with the installation.

Can I use the Combine tool without an image in the viewer or data frame?

You should have the appropriate image in the data frame or viewer when combining in 4.1, otherwise Feature Analyst will use a default image grid. This will sometimes cause the combined files to have a “resampled” appearance.

I can’t get my files to combine with the Combine tool.

Make sure that your files are symbolized using the “Class ID” field. Otherwise the Combine tool won’t work in Feature Analyst 4.1.

The License Manager option on toolbar is greyed out.

Go to “Tools>>Extensions” and check the box for Feature Analyst 4.1.

If the Set Up Learning window is cut off, follow these steps:

1. Extra large fonts or a dpi setting of 120 or greater will cause this problem. Try reducing the screen font size first:

• Right click on your monitor screen
• Select “Properties”
• Select “Appearance” tab
• Change the “font size” to either “ Normal” or “Large”

2. Try the steps below if part of the set up learning window is still cut off:

• Right click on your monitor screen and select “Properties”
• Go to the “Settings” tab and click the “Advanced” button
• Click on the “General” tab and under “DPI setting” choose “Normal Size (96DPI)”. Then click “Apply” and “OK”
• Restart your machine for the settings to take effect

If the Feature Analyst toolbar disappears and cannot be added with the ArcMap toolbar option, you have two options to reset your normal MXT file:

1. Close down ArcMap, then go to: C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Application Data\ESRI\ArcMap\Templates\. There you will find a file named 'Normal.mxt'. You can either change the name to Normal.mxt.bak, or delete it entirely. (Please note that this will delete any custom settings that you have for your normal mxt file. If you don’t want to lose custom settings, then try approach 2 below.) Next, reopen ArcMap – this should reset/recreate the Normal.mxt to the default settings and show your TOC.

2. Here’s another approach that doesn’t involve eliminating your normal MXT file:

• Select "Customize" in the ArcMap Tools menu
• Select "Toolbars" Tab
• Select "Feature Analyst 4.1 Toolbar" toolbar in the list of toolbars
• Click "Reset" button
• Select the template where toolbar should be restored (Normal.mxt for the default toolbar settings)
• Click OK

Feature Analyst for ArcGIS has conflict with LPS in IMAGINE.

When LPS is installed, Feature Analyst 4.1 won’t run in ArcGIS unless the following steps are performed:

• Shut down ArcGIS and ERDAS IMAGINE
• Go to “C:\Program Files\Leica Geosystems\Geospatial Imaging 9.1\Bin\NTx86”
• Find the file named “ESRI.ArcObjects.Core.dll” and rename it to “ESRI.ArcObjects.Core.dll.bak”
• If you have ERDAS IMAGINE 9.0, then you will need to repeat steps 2 and 3 for the 9.0 folder; that is:
• Go to “C:\Program Files\Leica Geosystems\IMAGINE and LPS 9.0\bin\ntx86”
• Rename the “ESRI.ArcObjects.Core.dll

Feature Analyst and LPS should now work normally.

“Memory exception” errors during Feature Analyst processing.

These types of errors are usually caused when the number of vertices in an output shapefile exceeds the system resources. Below are two options available in Feature Analyst that will lessen the demand upon the system resources (to check your version number, go to the Feature Analyst toolbar and click the red VLS logo; this will open the license manager window).

Vertices Culling option (available in Feature Analyst version 4.1.0.30)

Users can now enable a smoothing tolerance when converting rasters to vectors to reduce the number of vertices that are generated. Enabling this feature should allow users to process very large datasets that were problematic because a high number of vertices were being generated. To enable this behavior, do the following steps:

• Go to start>>run>>regedit.
• Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Visual Learning Systems\Feature Analyst.
• In the right hand window, look for “RToVCullSetting”. (If this key is not present in the registry, first make sure that you are looking in the “Current_User” tree. Once you verify that you are in the correct directory and the key is missing, right-click in the area of the keys and create a new string value and name it “RToVCullSetting”).
• Double-click on the new string value and insert a value of 1 or greater. A value of 1 will smooth one-pixel "stair-steps,” a value of 2 will reduce two-pixel "stair-steps" and so on.

Shapefile segmentation option (available in Feature Analyst versions 4.1.0.28 and higher)

Single-polygon shapefiles that have millions of vertices will often cause problems for the GIS platform. The shapefile segmentation option lessens the demand on the system by breaking up a large shapefile into multiple polygons. The segmentation option is set by default to 1.5 million vertices per shape. If a shape exceeds that, FA will draw that polygon and then proceed to the rest of the shape (all of the polygons will still reside in one shapefile).

A lower segmentation limit can be set by doing the following:

• Go to start>regedit.
• Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Visual Learning Systems\Feature Analyst.
• In the right-hand screen, double-click “MaxVertices” and then change the setting. Set it to 750,000 or lower if you are experiencing crashes with large shapefiles. Note that a setting of 0 will tell Feature Analyst to turn off the segmentation function. (If the “MaxVertices” key is not present in the registry, first make sure that you are looking in the “Current_User” tree. Once you verify that you are in the correct directory and the key is missing, right-click in the area of the keys and create a new string value and name it “MaxVertices”).

"Null" data values as background values are not handled correctly in Feature Analyst.

In the 4.1.0.30 release of Feature Analyst, “NoData” background values are being handled incorrectly. As a workaround, the null values need to be converted to zero using a raster application. The steps below outline a way to do this using Spatial Analyst in ArcGIS.

1.With the individual bands from your image loaded in ArcMap, open the Raster calculator in Spatial Analyst and enter the following expression:

Con ( IsNull ( [band_11.tif] ) , 0 , [band_11.tif] )

Note: You will need to replace “band_11.tif” in the expression with one of your bands. Here is what the screen will look like:

Click “evaluate”, which will create the calculation for the single band in your table of contents. This will turn all the null values to 0 but leave all other values at their original values.

2. You will then need to make the calculation permanent by right clicking on the calculation layer in the table of contents and selecting “Make Permanent.”

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for the other bands in your image.

4. Combine the bands together using the “Composite Bands” tool in ArcToolbox (see below).

ERDAS IMAGINE

AFE models from the Feature Analyst tutorial for IMAGINE don't open with batch command or Feature Modeler command.

“Memory exception” errors during Feature Analyst processing.

"Null" data values as background values are not handled correctly in Feature Analyst.

Unable to activate the Imagine Viewer once Feature Analyst is launched.

AFE models from the Feature Analyst tutorial for IMAGINE don’t open with batch command or Feature Modeler command.

This problem is related to the user account permissions.  If the user is not a local administrator on the machine then they will not be able to open .afe models in the Tutorial.  There are two possible solutions:  One is to add the user as a local administrator on that machine. The alternative is for the user to copy the entire tutorial project to “My Documents” and then work from that location.

“Memory exception” errors during Feature Analyst processing.

These types of errors are usually caused when the number of vertices in an output shapefile exceeds the system resources. Below are two options available in Feature Analyst that will lessen the demand upon the system resources (to check your version number, go to the Feature Analyst toolbar and click the red VLS logo; this will open the license manager window).

Vertices Culling option (available in Feature Analyst version 4.1.0.30)

Users can now enable a smoothing tolerance when converting rasters to vectors to reduce the number of vertices that are generated. Enabling this feature should allow users to process very large datasets that were problematic because a high number of vertices were being generated. To enable this behavior, do the following steps:

• Go to start>>run>>regedit.
• Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Visual Learning Systems\Feature Analyst.
• In the right hand window, look for “RToVCullSetting”. (If this key is not present in the registry, first make sure that you are looking in the “Current_User” tree. Once you verify that you are in the correct directory and the key is missing, right-click in the area of the keys and create a new string value and name it “RToVCullSetting”).
• Double-click on the new string value and insert a value of 1 or greater. A value of 1 will smooth one-pixel "stair-steps,” a value of 2 will reduce two-pixel "stair-steps" and so on.

Shapefile segmentation option (available in Feature Analyst versions 4.1.0.28 and higher)

Single-polygon shapefiles that have millions of vertices will often cause problems for the GIS platform. The shapefile segmentation option lessens the demand on the system by breaking up a large shapefile into multiple polygons. The segmentation option is set by default to 1.5 million vertices per shape. If a shape exceeds that, FA will draw that polygon and then proceed to the rest of the shape (all of the polygons will still reside in one shapefile).

A lower segmentation limit can be set by doing the following:

• Go to start>regedit.
• Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Visual Learning Systems\Feature Analyst.
• In the right-hand screen, double-click “MaxVertices” and then change the setting. Set it to 750,000 or lower if you are experiencing crashes with large shapefiles. Note that a setting of 0 will tell Feature Analyst to turn off the segmentation function. (If the “MaxVertices” key is not present in the registry, first make sure that you are looking in the “Current_User” tree. Once you verify that you are in the correct directory and the key is missing, right-click in the area of the keys and create a new string value and name it “MaxVertices”).

"Null" data values as background values are not handled correctly in Feature Analyst.

In the 4.1.0.31 release of Feature Analyst for ERDAS IMAGINE, “NoData” background values are being handled incorrectly. As a workaround, the null values need to be converted to zero using a raster application.

Unable to activate the Imagine Viewer once Feature Analyst is launched.

The latest service patches for either LPS or Imagine will cause Feature Analyst for Imagine to stop working - the user will be unable to activate the Imagine Viewer once Feature Analyst is launched. To correct this problem, you'll need to uninstall the following Leica patches:

33853 - LPS - Enhancement and Cumulative update 4
33941 - ERDAS - Maintenance and Enhancement release 5

This problem will be resolved with the release of Feature Analyst 4.2, which is tentatively scheduled for late January.

GeoMedia

The Feature Analyst launch button does not appear in the customize window in Geomedia 6.0.

There is a conflict between GeoMedia 6.00.34.92 hotfix and Feature Analyst 4.1.0.29.

“Memory exception” errors during Feature Analyst processing.

The Feature Analyst launch button does not appear in the customize window in Geomedia 6.0.

The correct Feature Analyst launch button in Geomedia 6.0 is the red triangle VLS logo.

To remedy this problem, click here to download the zipped files.

Once you unzip and run the .bat file, do the following to add the FA launch button to your toolbar:

• In Geomedia, go to tools>>customize
• In categories, select “custom”
• Drag the “Launch Feature Analyst” button (the red VLS triangle logo) onto the Geomedia toolbar
• Launch Feature Analyst by clicking on the Feature Analyst launch button

There is a conflict between GeoMedia 6.00.34.92 hotfix and Feature Analyst 4.1.0.29.

Click here to download the necessary .zip file. After you unzip it, drag and drop the file into the following location: C:\WINDOWS\assembly.

Once you launch Geomedia and launch Feature Analyst, you may notice some buttons or menu options missing from the FA toolbar. If this is the case, then right click-on the FA toolbar, select “Customize”, then select “reset to defaults."

“Memory exception” errors during Feature Analyst processing.

This type of error is usually caused when the number of vertices in an output shapefile exceeds the system resources. Below is an option available in Feature Analyst 4.1.0.29 for Geomedia that will lessen the demand upon the system resources (to check your version number, go to the Feature Analyst toolbar and click the red VLS logo; this will open the license manager window).

Shapefile segmentation option (available in Feature Analyst versions 4.1.0.28 and higher)

Single-polygon shapefiles that have millions of vertices will often cause problems for the GIS platform. The shapefile segmentation option lessens the demand on the system by breaking up a large shapefile into multiple polygons. The segmentation option is set by default to 1.5 million vertices per shape. If a shape exceeds that, FA will draw that polygon and then proceed to the rest of the shape (all of the polygons will still reside in one shapefile).

A lower segmentation limit can be set by doing the following:

• Go to start>regedit.
• Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Visual Learning Systems\Feature Analyst.
• In the right-hand screen, double-click “MaxVertices” double-click “MaxVertices” and then change the setting. Set it to 750,000 or lower if you are experiencing crashes with large shapefiles. Note that a setting of 0 will tell Feature Analyst to turn off the segmentation function. (If this key is not present in the registry, first make sure that you are looking in the “Current_User” tree. Once you verify that you are in the correct directory and the key is missing, right-click in the area of the keys and create a new string value and name it “MaxVertices”).

SOCET SET

How do I customize the Feature Analyst tool bar?

How do I delete shapes from my feature classes?

How do I customize the Feature Analyst tool bar?

Right-click on the tool bar, and select “Customize”, then drag the desired tools onto the toolbar.

How do I delete shapes from my feature classes?

Add the “Delete Features Tool” to the Feature Analyst toolbar using the “customize” option. Put the feature class into edit mode by right-clicking on it in the table of contents and selecting “start editing.” Click the “Delete Features Tool” to activate it, then click F3 to switch to the viewer. Click or drag on a polygon that you want to delete. To see the change, you will need to click F3 again, and turn on and off the layer in the Feature Analyst table of contents.