Rubbersheeting is typically used to align two or more layers. This process moves the features of a layer using a piecewise transformation that preserves straight lines. This example will show you how to rubbersheet data by using displacement links, multiple displacement links, and identity links. You will rubbersheet a newly imported set of street features to match an existing feature class of street features.

The Spatial Adjustment toolbar allows you to transform, rubbersheet, and edgematch your data within an edit session. Spatial adjustments are based on displacement links. These are special graphical elements that represent the source and destination locations for an adjustment.

If the Editor toolbar isn’t displayed in ArcMap, click the Editor Toolbar button on the Standard toolbar to add it. If the Spatial Adjustment toolbar isn't visible, click the View menu, point to Toolbars, and click Spatial Adjustment to add the Spatial Adjustment toolbar.

In this example the displacement links will be snapped to the vertices of the ImportStreets and Streets feature classes.

The Spatial Adjustment tool allows you to adjust a selected set of features or all the features in a layer. This setting is available in the Choose Input For Adjustment dialog box. The default is to adjust selected features. In this example the option to adjust all features in specific layers is used.

The next step is to choose an adjustment method. In this example you will see how to use the Rubbersheet spatial adjustment method. The Rubbersheet method adjusts features based on a surface that it builds from the displacement links. There are two ways to build this surface: Linear interpolation or Natural Neighbor interpolation. In this example you see how to use the Natural Neighbor method.

Displacement links define the source and destination coordinates for an adjustment. Displacement links can be created manually or loaded from a link file. In this example you will see how to create displacement links at several key intersections of the Streets and ImportStreets layers. To create a displacement link, click the New Displacement Link tool, click a location on one layer, and then click the location in the other layer where you want it to be moved.

The Multiple Displacement Links tool allows you to create multiple displacement links in one operation. This tool can help save time by allowing you to create more than one link at a time; it is especially useful for curved features. To create a Multiple Displacement links, click the Multiple Displacement Links tool on the Spatial Adjustment toolbar, click the curved feature in one layer, and then click the curved feature in the other layer where you want it to be moved. You will be prompted to enter the number of links to create along the curved features.

Identity links are used to anchor features at specific points to prevent their movement during an adjustment. You would add identity links at key intersections to maintain their locations. To create Identity Links, click the New Identity Link tool on the Spatial Adjustment toolbar, then click the locations that you do not want to be moved by the adjustment process.

The final step of the spatial adjustment process is to perform the adjustment. Since the Spatial Adjustment tool operates in an edit session, you can use the Undo command to undo the adjustment.

After you perform a rubbersheet adjustment all of the displacement links will turn into Identity links. You can delete these links since you no longer need them. If you are satisfied with the results of the spatial adjustment, you can stop editing and save your edits.