Using the raster cleanup commands
Release 9.2 Last modified November 9, 2006

About using the Raster Cleanup commands

Two of the Raster Cleanup commands rely on a current raster selection. These are the Erase Selected Cells and Fill Selected Cells commands.

The Erase Selected Cells command deletes any cell that is part of a raster selection. This can help you save time by reducing the amount of interactive editing required to eliminate unwanted cells. When used in conjunction with an expression-based query, this command can be an efficient way to remove data from the raster on a broad scale.

The Fill Selected Cells command fills or paints any cell that is part of a raster selection. This can be useful for filling holes in the raster lines that could impede the vectorization. When used in conjunction with an expression-based query, this command can be an efficient way to clean up your data.

The raster cleanup commands also include several raster morphological operations. These include Erosion, Dilation, Opening and Closing. These commands apply to the whole raster layer at once.

Erosion—Decreases the thickness of all raster features in the raster layer. Features may be erased if this value is set too high.

Dilation—Increases the thickness of all raster features in the raster layer. It can be used to add definition to features before vectorization.

Opening—Erosion followed by Dilation using the same value. It can be used to erase thin lines such as grid lines in a source map before vectorization.

Closing—Dilation followed by Erosion using the same value. It can be used to smooth rough linear features in the raster as well as fill in small gaps between raster foreground objects.

You can save your raster edits any time during the raster cleanup session or when you stop the cleanup session. When you use the Save command, edits are written to the target raster layer.

When you use the Save As command, the edits, along with the entire raster, are written to a new raster file. This option is recommended for those who do not want to modify the original raster layer. ArcScan supports the creation of the following raster formats: JP2, SDE Raster, JPG, File Geodatabase Raster, PNG, GIF, Personal Geodatabase Raster, ESRI GRID, ERDAS IMAGINE, TIFF, and BMP.

You do not have to save edits to vectorize the data. You can start a cleanup session, modify the raster, then vectorize the data without ever saving the raster edits. When prompted to save edits, choose No to discard the changes.

How to use the Raster Cleanup commands

Erasing selected cells

1. Click the Raster Cleanup menu.
   
2. Click Erase Selected Cells.
   

All the selected cells are erased.

Filling selected cells

1. Click the Raster Cleanup menu.
   
2. Click Fill Selected Cells.
   

All the selected cells are filled with the foreground color.

Morphological operations

-Click the Raster Cleanup menu.
-Click the morphological operation you wish to perform.
-Enter a pixel value in the dialog box.
The operation is applied to all foreground cells with the raster layer.

Saving raster edits

1. Click the Raster Cleanup menu.
   
2. Click Save.
   

Saving raster edits to a new file

1. Click the Raster Cleanup menu.
   
2. Click Save As.
   
3. Click the Save as type dropdown arrow and choose a raster format.
   
4. Navigate to the folder in which you want to save the raster and type a filename.
   
5. Click Save.
   

Tip

SDE Rasters cannot be edited with the Raster Cleanup tools. If you need to edit an SDE Raster, you should save it to an editable raster format.

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