I am trying to find a tool or workflow for creating a type of minimum bounding polygon or envelope for complex land areas. (Not just a rectangle, but a simplified perimeter)
Can anyone recommend a way to create the simplified black boundary lines around the irregular colored checkerboard areas in the attached image without having to manually digitize.
I’m using ESRI ArcMap Advanced, but open to other tools.
You might try Aggregate Polygons. It is located in the Cartography Toolbox, Generalization toolset. This requires an Advanced ArcGIS license. http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.2/index.html#//00700000000s000000
Assuming that white areas are small polygons ( if not they can be created) repeating Spatial join of whites with colored (share boundary with option, one to many) might work. After first join assign to white color of first colored. Append colored with subset of assigned whites. Remove subset from whites, etc. You might want to sort colored first, to set a priority. It will nicely fill gaps inside same color areas, result on the boundary will depend on priorities in colored.
