Edgematching is used to align features along the edges of adjacent layers. Usually, the layer with the less accurate features is adjusted, while the other layer is used as the target layer. Edgematching relies on displacement links to define the adjustment.

In this example you will see how to edgematch two adjacent tiles of stream data by using displacement links.

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 endpoints of the StreamsNorth and StreamsSouth layers.

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 only selected features will be adjusted.

The next step is to choose an adjustment method. In this example you will see how to use the Edge Snap mathod. There are two methods of Edge Snapping, Line and Smooth. The line method only moves the endpoint of the line being adjusted. The Smooth method distributes the adjustment across the entire feature.

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 edgematch adjustment method requires that you define the source and target layers and determine how the displacement links will be created. In this example the Source Layer is StreamsNorth and the Target Layer is StreamsSouth. The StreamsNorth layer will be adjusted to match the target layer, StreamsSouth. The options to "create one link for each destination point" and to "prevent duplicate links" are used to control how links are created.

Displacement links define the source and destination coordinates for an adjustment. In this example you will see how to create multiple links using the Edge Match tool. To create the links, click the Edge Match tool on the Spatial Adjustment toolbar, then drag a box around the endpoints of the features. The Edge Match tool will create multiple displacement links based on the source and target features that fall inside the box.

Since edgematching only affects the exterior regions of the layer, you must select the features that you want to adjust. To select these features, click the Edit tool on the Editor toolbar and drag a box around the features that are to be edgematched.

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.