digitizing (tolerence) error in line data

Question

I have designed a large number of boundaries. For accuracy, I took lines in patches from different data sets and merged them into one. Now I want to turn them into polygons from lines. I every second boundary I have to correct digitizing error manually. Either boundaries have gap between them, or they are overlapped or two nodes cross and a gap is left behind. Is there some way that the boundaries may be adjusted that polygons - out of lines - are made. I don't want to correct each boundary manually as they are a lot. Plus I am not a programmer. anything that can be done via arcgis 9.3 or quantumGIS, which i recently installed... :D

Regards,

Answer 1

1. Delete gaps:

   Try to use Integrate Tool to eliminate gaps between the lines. (Make a backup copy of your input file because Integrate modifies the original input features!). Integrate will not only change "wrong vertices" (the gaps between the lines). Integrate will also change "good vertices" if they are within the cluster tolerance. You have to try if Integrate is good for your data.

2. Convert line to polygon:

   If you have an ArcInfo license you can convert the lines to polygons with Feature To Polygon Tool. If you do not have ArcInfo you can use the free function "Polyline To Polygon" of ET Geowizards.