Reordering columns/rows in a shapefile in ArcGIS

I recently created a shapefile in ArcGIS of my oceanic transform fault data. I started off with two separate files: a shapefile of points that simply contained a latitude/longitude and name for each fault; and a polyline shape file that contained the length measurements and the start/end points. I combined these two shapefiles in ArcMap using the "Join Data" command, and selecting to join the data based on spatial location. The result was a single polyline shapefile, that included all the original polyline attributes as well as all the related attributes (name, center lat/long) from the point file.

The problem was that the shapefile was not ordered the way I wanted it. In ArcMap you can reorder rows by ascending/descending values by double-clicking on the column header, or move columns simply by clicking on the header and dragging it over. The problem is that this only applies to your view of the shapefile attribute table, and the reordering is not actually saved to the shapefile itself. If you close out ArcMap, open a new map, reimport the shapefile, everything is back to the original order.

There is a free plugin tool for ArcGIS that is quite powerful and can solve these issues for you: ET GeoWizards. There are both free and paid versions of this toolbox, but I found the free version did exactly what I need. This toolbox is pretty impressive, and includes tools for feature translation, where shapefile objects are moved by a user-specified distance, filling holes in polygons, generalizing features, creating clusters from points, and a whole suite of other functions.

In order to reorder the columns and sort the rows in your shapefile, you can find the necessary commands under "Basic." The "Order Fields" command lets you select which fields you want to use from your original shapefile and specify the order in which they should appear. The "Sort Shapes" command lets you select which columns you want to sort the data by (you can select more than one), and whether you want them in ascending or descending order.

Another great toolbox plugin for ArcMap is Jenness Enterprises' Tools for Graphics and Shapes.  If you are looking for a tool to calculate spheroidal (geodesic) length of features in your shapefile, this is the tool for you. While this toolbox includes many of the same functions as the GeoWizards plugin, it also has many unique tools as well.  I have found that having both toolboxes has made working in ArcMap a much more pleasant experience. I wrote up a blogpost on the Tools for Graphics and Shapes plug-in back in 2010.

Geodesic Distance in ArcMap

One of the things I like about ESRI ArcMap is the ease with which you can measure features in your data. Recently I wanted a a simple way to measure geodesic distances of some projected data. The measure tool in ArcMap, by default, measures distances in projected units in projected data, and geodesic distances only for data displayed in geographic lat/long. If you hold down the shift key while measuring a distance, Arc will calculate geodesic distances regardless of projection. What I really wanted to be able to do, however, was to be able to draw lines in a shapefile, and then have Arc calculate the geodesic distance of those lines. This is something that Arc cannot do, without you first unprojecting (or more correctly, reprojecting) your data to geographic coordinates.

Luckily, I found this: http://137.227.239.67/pigwad/tutorials/scripts/

Looks like some of the folks at ESRI got together with the USGS a designed a plug-in that will let you, among other things, calculate geodesic distances from projected data. It uses the parameters specified by your projection to unproject the data into geographic coordinates and then calculates the geodesic distance on the fly. Since it uses the semi-major and semi-minor radii that you specify in your projection, the distortion should be minimized. This tool is definitely a time saver, as it does the reprojection for you only on the data you are calculating, and enables you to keep your whole project in projected space.