FAQ: How Does FILL Work in ArcObjects and GeoProcessing?

Answer

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In ArcInfo Workstation, the Fill command was an ARC Macro Language (AML). For ArcGIS version 9.0, the Fill function has been reworked into ArcObjects code. The following is pseudocode that can be used to see the algorithm the function now uses:

Code:
# preliminary processing
- Create a copy of the input surface raster (subsequently 
  referred to as the currently filled dataset).
- Compute FocalFlow using the input copy.
- Fill one-cell sinks using neighborhood cell addressing 
  techniques.

# filling larger sinks
- Loop until no sink exists
   - Compute FlowDirection
   - Compute Sink using FlowDirection result
   - Find number of sinks remaining (to decide if 'filling' 
     is finished)
   - If not finished
      - Compute Watershed using FlowDirection and Sink results
      - Compute ZonalFill using Watershed result and currently 
        filled dataset
      - Set any ZonalFill cellvalues to Z-Min if cells are NoData
      - If zlimit is not used
         - If filled dataset is < ZonalFill, update cell value 
           using ZonalFill result
      - Else
         - Compute ZonalMinimum using watershed result and filled
           dataset
         - Set any Zonalmin cellvalues to Z-Min if cells are 
           nodata
         - Compute the difference dataset between ZonalFill and 
           ZonalMinimum results
         - If filled dataset has cell values < ZonalFill and 
           difference dataset < Z-Limit
            - Then update cell value using ZonalFill result
      - Endif
   - Endif
- End loop

Article ID:000006594

Software:

ArcMap 8 x
ArcMap 9 x

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How does FILL work in ArcObjects and GeoProcessing?

Answer

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