How Eliminate (Coverage) works

The Eliminate tool is used most often to remove sliver polygons created in an overlay of two coverages where the arc overlap is similar but not exact.

Eliminate reduces the number of polygons or lines in a coverage by merging selected features with one of their neighbors.

For the POLY option with the Keep polygon boundary option (KEEP_EDGE) selected, the longest arc of each selected polygon is eliminated. For the POLY option with Eliminating polygon by border option unchecked (AREA), the largest adjacent deselected polygon are located, and the arc between it and the selected polygon is eliminated. Label points are eliminated when a whole polygon is eliminated. Topology is then updated. All polygons in the output coverage will have only one label point. For the LINE option, an arc to be eliminated is merged with a connecting arc that preceded it in the processing order of the Eliminate command. The resultant arc will assume the direction of the arc into which the eliminated arc merges.

Features to be eliminated are determined by a set of logical criteria applied to the polygon or arc attributes. You must specify a Selection File that identifies selection features. The logical criteria are defined using the Reselect tool.

Eliminating polygons

• A deleted polygon's label point is also removed.
• A deleted polygon is merged with the neighboring polygon that has the longest shared border or the largest area.
• Only the selected set of polygons or lines will be eliminated. Polygons that border the background polygon will not be eliminated when KEEPEDGE is specified.
• Eliminate will create an Output Feature Class in the same precision as the Input Feature Class.
• Use the KEEP POLYGONS with an outside border option to preserve the outer boundary of polygons that border the universe polygon.
• Regions are maintained, but the eliminated polygons are removed from the Region subclasses.
• Route-systems attached to eliminated polygon arcs are removed, and ARCLINK# is renumbered.

Eliminating lines

• Arcs and route systems can be simplified by removing selected arcs and adding the equivalent distance to the connecting arc that preceded it in the processing order. The resultant arc assumes the direction of the connecting arc.
• All arcs must be split where they intersect other arcs, otherwise ELIMINATE will abort execution. Use Clean with the Line option to split overlapping arcs.
• Route systems belonging to eliminated arcs (whether actually removed or not) will be deleted. Those belonging to arcs that increased in length by absorbing eliminated arcs will have their F-POS and T-POS adjusted so they occupy the same set of previous locations.