Digitize your neighborhood with ArcGIS Community Maps Editor

Many schools, universities, parks, and other public places appear in Esri basemaps as simple rectangular polygons with a label. In real life these important places are richly detailed with landscaping, individual buildings, sports facilities, and other points of interest, but the commercial data used to create these basemaps often do not include such details. Using the ArcGIS Community Maps Editor app, you can add these details to the basemap for your community by tracing features from Esri imagery.

In this tutorial, you'll practice creating detailed, high-quality data for important features on the map. Data is reviewed by Esri staff weekly and, if accepted, included in the next basemap update. The data is also available for download as open data (Creative Commons by Attribution license) so that the contributor can use the data in their own maps as part of their GIS.

This tutorial was last tested on Feb 10, 2024.

Requirements

• User, Publisher, or Administrator role in an ArcGIS organization (see options for software access)

Digitize Your Neighborhood with Community Maps

Access the sandbox editor

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create features for an area of interest using the Community Maps Editor sandbox. The sandbox version of the Community Maps Editor app is intended for practice and enables you to edit the map without permanently saving any changes you make. To save and submit edits for addition to the Esri basemap, you'll need to use the standard Community Maps Editor app.

You'll start by joining the Community Maps Editor group. This will provide you with access to the editor application used throughout the tutorial.

1. Go to the Community Maps website.
2. Under Edit Features, click Access Editor.

   

   The Community Maps Editor group opens a tab in your browser.

3. On the Community Maps Editor group page, click Join this group.

   

   You must be signed into your ArcGIS Online account to join this group.

   Note:

   To join the group, you need to have an ArcGIS Online organizational or developer subscription account, with privileges to join an external group. If you receive an error message, check with your administrator.

4. Sign in to your ArcGIS organizational account.

   Note:

   If you don't have an organizational account, see options for software access.

   Now that you're signed in, you can join the group.

5. On the Community Maps Editor group page, click Join this group button again.

   

   You are now a member of the group that has access to the editor app.

6. In the Community Maps Editor group, on the ribbon, click the Content tab.

   

7. Point to and click the Community Maps Editor (Sandbox app) thumbnail.

   

   The Community Maps Editor (Sandbox app) application opens in a browser tab.

8. If necessary, click Approve to allow the application access to your account.
   
9. Click Get Started to begin your practice editing session.

   The application opens to a map of the world.

   

   You are now ready to start editing.

   Note:

   After joining, you can return to the Community Maps Editor group through ArcGIS Online. When signed in, click the Groups tab and find the Community Maps Editor group. Inside the group, click the Content tab and find the sandbox app.

Create an area of interest

First, you'll create an area of interest (AOI) feature. The AOI feature will serve as your editing workspace, and all edits must be inside the defined area. Because you're editing in a sandbox session, your edits won't be saved. If you exit the sandbox, you will need to re-create the area of interest.

1. On the toolbar, click Find. Then, search for Polk State College and press Enter. Click on Polk State College below the Search button.

   

   The map navigates to Polk State College, which is a public college in Winter Haven, Florida, United States.

   

   This campus already has a few features digitized, such as roads, paths, and buildings. Even though some of the college's features have already be added by someone else in the editor community, you'll still learn how to digitize them yourself. However, when you add features in the non-sandbox environment, you will not need to duplicate existing features. The features you add during this tutorial are for instructional purposes only.

2. On the ribbon, click Pan. Center the map on Polk State College.

   

   To make this location easy to return to later, you'll create a bookmark.

3. In the Find pane, for Polk State College, click Bookmark.

   

   After the location is bookmarked, it can be accessed in the Find pane, under Bookmarks. Your bookmarks will be saved even if you close the application.

   
4. Close the Find pane.

   Next, you'll start drawing the area of interest using the Create tool and Area of Interest feature template.

5. On the ribbon, click Create and click Choose.

   

   The Choose pane appears. This pane provides feature templates when creating features.

6. In the Choose pane, expand Area of Interest, and select Area of Interest.

   

   The Choose pane closes, and the ribbon now displays the Area of Interest symbol on the Choose button.

   

   You can now create the AOI feature. The AOI feature designates the area that will contain the features you'll create. The AOI should be a simple polygon that covers an area slightly larger than the campus you'll edit. In this case, you'll draw a simple polygon around Polk State College.

7. To create features, click the map to add points.

   Tip:

   To learn more about creating features, you can view help documentation by clicking the Help and Feeback button on the left toolbar.

8. Add points around the feature to create an area of interest that encompasses Polk State College. When the AOI is completed, double-click to stop editing.

   You have set the AOI around Polk State College.

   

   When you are done editing, map will darken and the Properties pane appears. You're required to name all AOI features, though these don't appear on the map. AOI feature names only provide a description in the editing session and help the Community Maps team validate edits.

9. In the Properties pane, type Polk State College and click OK.

   

   Your AOI feature has been created.

   

   You are now ready to begin editing. You'll start with buildings.

Create buildings

Once you have an AOI drawn, you can start creating features in it. Prominent features, such as buildings, should be created first. You should also review the area of interest to determine what features could make the map more informative and useful. For this tutorial, the building feature that you are adding already exists, but you'll be adding it to learn how editing works.

1. On the left toolbar, click Basemaps. Choose the Editing View basemap.

   

   The basemap changes to satellite imagery.

   Note:

   The example images may not appear exactly the same on your screen. The Editing View basemap is based on satellite imagery which is regularly updated.

2. On the ribbon, click Pan and zoom in on the large square building near the southeast corner of campus.

   Tip:

   To zoom in on a specific area, press the Shift key and draw a selection box around the feature. You can also use your mouse's scroll wheel.

   

   The map zooms to the building.

3. On the ribbon, click Create and click Choose.

   The Choose pane appears.

4. In the Choose pane, expand Buildings and choose Building.

   

   Building outlines are often straight edges, so to keep the traced building feature geometrically accurate, you'll turn on the snapping tool. This tool displays hints to help you align corners and angles as you draw the feature.

5. On the bottom toolbar, click the Snapping and Layer Hints button to turn on snapping.

   

   Tip:

   While editing, you can also turn the snapping tool on and off by pressing the Spacebar. This can be helpful when digitizing features that contain non-right angles.

6. Click around the building to trace the feature.

   As you digitize, guides will appear to help you draw parallel and perpendicular lines accurately.

   

   Tip:

   If you make a mistake, click Undo to delete your previous actions. To trace more precisely, click and hold to magnify the imagery.

7. Double-click the endpoint to finish tracing the feature.

   

   Next, you'll add detail to features using the Split tool. The Polk State College Library has three small protruding features that you'll trace.

   

8. On the toolbar, click Split.

   

9. Trace the three square features in the middle of the roof.

   

   When you're happy with the feature, you'll provide it with a name.

10. On the toolbar, click Properties. For Building Name (Label), type Polk State College Library and press Enter.

    

11. Close the Properties pane.

    The name is automatically saved when you close the Properties pane. After adding the Building Name (Label) property, the feature on the map is updated to show the label.

Create parking lots

Parking lots are another common feature on school campuses and take up large amounts of land. In addition, they're distinguished from other asphalt surfaces by their lines. You'll trace the parking lot features and then use the line tool to add the stall dividing lines.

1. Using the Pan tool, navigate to the large parking lot in the center of the campus AOI. Zoom in to see the features clearly.
2. On the ribbon, click Create and click Choose. In the Choose pane, expand Hardscape and select Parking Lot.

   The edges of the parking lot are both straight and curved. While tracing, you can switch between the straight line and curved line tracing tools.

3. Add points for straight edges until you get to a curve.
4. Click the Line tracing tool and choose Curves.

   

   Tip:

   Alternatively, while tracing, you can press M to switch between the Curves and Standard line tools.

5. Using the curved line tool, add a point to the opposite end of the curve.

   A yellow diamond appears in the middle of the last two points. You can drag this around to create the shape of the curve.

6. Reposition the yellow midpoint to shape the curve of the parking lot.

   

7. Switch back to the Standard line tool and finish tracing the parking lot.

   Because of the tree cover, it's difficult to see the entire feature. Use the snapping tools to get the lines as close as possible.

   

   After the parking lot feature is created, you can add more detail by tracing parking lines.

8. On the ribbon, click Create and click Choose. In the Choose pane, expand Lines and select Parking Lot Line.

   This parking lot contains many parking lines to trace, and manually tracing each line would be tedious, considering all parking spots are similar features. To streamline this process, you can draw a few lines, select them, and then copy and paste them to create additional features. After pasting the features, you can adjust them to match the basemap.

9. Trace one of the long vertical parking lot lines.
10. Trace three individual horizontal parking lot lines.

    Tip:

    These can be any three lines. Pick three that you can see most clearly with the least amount of tree cover.

    

11. On the ribbon, click Select.
12. Drag a selection box over the three horizontal lines to select them all.

    

    The selection also includes the parking lot polygon and the area of interest polygon. If you try to paste the line selection with other features selected, it will paste a second parking lot and area of interest polygon.

13. On the toolbar, click Selection.

    

    The Selection pane lists all the features that are currently selected. By clicking the remove button next to each group or individual feature, you can remove one or all of those features from the selection.

14. In the Selection pane, for Hardscape, click the remove button. For Area of Interest, click the remove button.

    

    Tip:

    To identify listed features, hover over the item in the Selection pane. The corresponding feature will be highlighted in orange on the map.

    The three parking lot lines are the only features selected.

    

15. On the ribbon, click Copy and click Paste.

    

    Note:

    You can also use the Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V keyboard shortcuts to copy and paste lines. For Mac users, these shortcuts are Cmd+C and Cmd+V.

    

    After the features are pasted, they are added to the map in green and placed on top of the original lines.

    Next, you'll move the lines.

16. Move the copied parking lot lines above or below the three lines your originally drew to align them with the lines in the imagery basemap.

    

17. In the Paste pane, click Paste.

    Clicking the Paste button finishes the copy and paste process for these three lines.

18. Repeat the copy and paste process until you've added all the lines in the row. Close the Paste pane and Selection pane when you are done.

    As you create additional features, you can redo the selection to copy and paste as much or as little as you want. For example, once you've finished one parking row, you can select the entire row and paste it over the other parking lines. When you're done, you can deselect the lines or choose another feature template.

Create landscape areas

To add special detail for a school campus, you can create a variety of landscape features that make the campus distinctive and beautiful. For this part of the tutorial, you'll focus on the west side of the Polk State College campus, which includes large grassy areas, a water body, walking paths, and more.

In cases like this, you want to start by drawing the largest, underlying layer. Since the largest and most prominent landscape feature type in this part of campus is grass, you'll trace a large grass area and then add other features on top of it.

1. Pan and zoom the map so that you can see the grass area to the west of the parking lot.
2. Click Create and click Choose.
3. Expand Landscape and click Grass.

   For this feature, you want to clip the grass area to the existing parking lot that you created in the previous section. This will make sure that the grass and parking lot features align with no gaps or overlaps.

4. On the right, click the Cut/Trim tool and make sure Trim is selected.

   

5. Add a point to the northwest corner of the grass area and draw a straight line to the east toward the parking lot. Click the next point so it is past the west edge of the parking lot and snapping to its north edge.

   

6. Add the next point somewhere along the south edge of the parking lot where you want to draw the eastern edge of the grass.

   

7. Zoom out and continue to draw the complete grass area on the west side of campus.
8. Double-click the first point to finish drawing the feature.

   When the grass feature is created, notice it will be trimmed to the edge of the parking lot so the features don't overlap.

   

   You can now create other landscape (and hardscape) features inside this grass area. You'll start by adding the lake on the southwest edge of campus.

9. On the map, zoom in to the lake so you can see it more clearly.

   

   Tip:

   If you want to see the imagery more clearly through the Landscape (grass) feature, on the toolbar, you can click Layers and in the Layers pane, adjust the transparency of the Landscape layer.

10. On the ribbon, click Create and click Choose. In the Choose pane, expand Landscape and choose Pool / Fountain / Water.
11. Click the Cut/Trim tool and choose Cut.

    To create the lake feature, there are a few options. Depending on the shape of the lake and the level of detail desired, you can click the Line tool and select the Standard, Curves, or Freehand line tool. In most cases, a mix of using the Standard and Curves line tools works best to get a good level of detail.

12. Trace the lake, using the M key to switch back and forth between Standard and Curves line tools. Double-click to finish tracing.

    

    When the lake feature is created, it will be cut inside the grass so the features don't overlap. Now, you'll create another landscape feature, the beach volleyball courts east of the lake.

13. Use the pan tool to pan east to the sandy rectangular area.

    

14. On the ribbon, click Create and click Choose. In the Choose pane, expand the Landscape group, choose Sand.
15. Zoom in to see the courts more clearly.

    In the imagery, you can faintly see the shadow of a fence around the courts.

16. Trace the volleyball court, making sure it is being cut from the grass area.

    

    The volleyball courts are complete.

Create sports fields

Another important feature on many school campuses is the sports facilities, including football fields, baseball fields, and swimming pools. These often represent important landmarks on the campus and a source of pride for the school. For this campus, a prominent baseball field and two soccer fields are visible in the imagery.

You'll start with tracing the baseball field. Most baseball fields have the same components: the infield grass and dirt, the outfield grass, and the dirt warning track around the field. To make sure all the parts align, the easiest way to create a baseball field is to create the largest area first, and then cut the other components into that area. From the imagery, you can see that there is a dirt warning track around the entire field. Inside the track is the grass of the baseball field. Inside the grass is the dirt of the infield and the pitching mound. You'll draw the features in that order, and then add some detail.

1. Pan and zoom the map to center on the baseball field.
2. On the ribbon, click Create and click Choose. In the Landscape group, click Dirt.
3. Click the edge of the dirt behind home plate and start to draw the edge of field with a straight line.
4. Trace around the outside of the dirt track using the Standard and Curves line tools. Double-click to finish the feature.

   

   The entire field is encased in a dirt polygon. The next step is to cut the baseball field from the dirt polygon.

5. Click Choose and expand the Sports menu. Choose Baseball Field. Trace the grass baseball field inside the dirt area.

   

   The next step is to cut the infield dirt from the grass field.

6. Change the feature type back to Dirt and trace the infield that arcs between first and third base.

   

   Next, you'll add the pitcher's mound as a dirt circle. To draw a circle, it easiest to use a stencil.

7. On the toolbar, click Stencils. In the Polygon Stencil group, drag the Circle Polygon onto the map, centered on the pitcher's mound area.

   

   The circle stencil maybe too little or too large. Before you resize it, you want to lock the aspect so it stays in a circular shape. If you resize the shape before locking the aspect, it can become elongated and oval shaped.

8. On the bottom ribbon, click the Aspect ratio button.

   

   The Aspect button no longer has a line through it, indicating that the aspect of the shape is locked.

9. Resize and move the circle to match the pitcher's mound area.

   

10. When you are satisfied with the size of the Circle Polygon stencil, on the side toolbar, click Complete.

    

    To complete the infield, you can now add the home plate area.

11. Drag another Circle Polygon stencil onto the map and center it on home plate. Resize the circle and click the Complete button.

    

    Next, you'll check your recent edits to see how they look.

12. On the toolbar, click Basemaps and choose Existing View to see the baseball field.

    

    The map updates to show the Existing View basemap.

    Tip:

    To make it easier to see your edits, clear any of your selected features using the Selection pane.

    

Add sports field lines

For a finishing touch, you can add field lines using the app's built in stencils for sports fields.

1. In the Basemaps pane, change the basemap back to Editing View.
2. On the ribbon, click Create and click Choose. Expand Lines and choose Sports Field / Court Line.
3. On the toolbar, click Stencils. In the Sports section, drag the Baseball Field stencil onto the map.
4. Resize the stencil until the ends of the base lines reach the edge of outfield.

   

5. On the side toolbar, click the Complete button.

   The soccer fields nearby also can be created using stencils. There are three soccer fields, and you'll add two of them.

6. Pan and zoom the map to the soccer fields to the west of the baseball field.

   

7. On the toolbar, click Stencils, and in the Stencils pane, under Sports, drag the Football Pitch (Soccer Field) stencil onto the middle of the soccer field to the south.
8. Rotate and resize the lines until they match the imagery. When the stencil is placed, on the side toolbar, click the Complete button.

   Tip:

   You can rotate a stencil by using the Rotate handle.

   

   Next, you'll add a circle to the center of the soccer field.

9. In the Stencils pane, under Basic, drag the Generic Circle stencil into the middle of the field. Click the Complete button when it is placed where you want it.

   

10. Add a second Football Pitch (Soccer Field) stencil and a Generic Circle stencil to the second soccer field.

    

    Now, you'll explore the results of your editing.

11. Switch the basemap to Existing View and check the features.

    

    You have finished adding polygon and stencil features to the campus.

Create points of interest

The final step to complete your school campus is to add points of interest (POI) for label purposes. At a minimum, you'll want to make sure the school name is being labeled properly. Even though the college name already appears in the Existing View, you'll still get practice learning how to add points of interest by adding the college name.

You can also add other POI features if you want to label other features on the campus (for example, sports field or staff parking) that don't have name properties to label (such as buildings). For this school campus, you want to update the name to be more specific to the campus using a POI.

1. Zoom and pan the map to the middle of campus.
2. On the ribbon, click Create and click Choose. In the Choose pane, expand Points of Interest and choose Points of Interest.
3. Click in the middle of campus. In the Properties pane, under Point of Interest (Label) type Polk State College (Winter Haven). In the Review window, click OK.

   

   You can add other POIs as needed. The labels may not display in the Community Maps Editor app, but they are visible in the Properties pane when a feature is selected.

To finish the Polk State College campus, you can continue adding buildings, parking lots, sidewalks, and other features. If you want to try digitizing another feature, draw another AOI and keep practicing, but remember that this is just a sandbox version. When you're ready, the Community Maps Editor app can be used to add features around the world.

Edits made to the Community Maps Editor app are reviewed weekly and added to the Esri basemap on a monthly basis. For more information about the Community Maps Program, check the home page and group.

You can find more tutorials in the tutorial gallery.

Acknowledgements

• World Imagery layer sources: Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics, and the GIS User Community
• Community vector tile layer sources: Esri, TomTom, Garmin, FAO, NOAA, USGS, OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS User Community