First off, open your layer properties by double clicking the City Street layer. Select the Labels tab and choose “Define classes…” from the Method: drop down as shown above. This will display the SQL Query button which we use to load the saved expressions.

You will see a form similar to the Select by Attributes tool. This is the formed used by ArcGIS to generate SQL queries. The text box near the bottom is where you can type your expressions (if you know SQL) or use the buttons and field names above it to construct an expression using available fields and operators (AND, =, Not, etc…). We wont be doing that today as we already have the query saved to a text file.
Click Load to select the file containing your saved query. If you can’t see the expression file when you navigate to the proper folder you may have to append “.exp” to your text file.

Here is what the form looks like after loading the SQL query. If you’re familiar with SQL skip to the next step. Else, let’s examine some parts of the query…

First notice the “STREETNAME” text string… this is the location of the value we want to examine within the table of street attributes. You can see the field name in the list at top which shows all available fields within the street attribute table. Each time, the field name is enclosed in quotes (“). The value within the field is located within apostrophes (‘), for example ‘RIGHT TURN’ is a value within the “STREETNAME” field. We use (<>) since we dont want RIGHT TURN labeles. AND is used most often of all the Boolean Operators but notice the first visible line of the query has the string “STREETNAME” NOT LIKE ‘RAMP%’. The % filters out all instances of RAMP like ‘RAMP A’ or ‘RAMP B’. CAREFUL since this also removes strings like ‘RAMPART’ which may be a value you want included in your map! This isn’t a tutorial on SQL expressions but you can see how understanding how the query is evaluated by the computer can keep you from making a simple mistake as with the ‘RAMPART’ example. If you would like some info on SQL expressions, send me an email and I’ll put something together. In the meantime, I invite you to edit this example to see how the results vary with different operators. Switch all the ANDs to ORs for example. Try switching only one AND to an OR. Try switching different ANDs to ORs and you will start to get an idea of how the query is evaluated.

Click “OK” to dismiss each dialogue box. It is important to review the result each time you use a SQL expression. In a long expression like this one there will almost always be some unexpected results so carefully evaluate your map to ensure all labels which are neccessary are displayed. If not, you will need to remove one or more expressions within the query.

Display your 3D analyst toolbar if it is not already. To do this, right-click on any open toolbar area and select 3D Alalyst.

You can also enable the toolbar from Tools>Customize.

Once the 3D Analyst toolbar is displayed; ensure these two icons are activated. If they are greyed out the 3D Analyst extension is not enabled. Select Entensions from the Tools menu and place a check near 3D analyst.

Once 3D Analyst is enabled, I select the data from which I will build my TIN. Notice I have de-selected those elevations representing the intake structure in the bottom left of the basin. To do this, I hold down <SHIFT> while selecting the points around the intake structure (holding down shift keeps the other points in my selection). I de-selected these points to simplify the rendered surface. In this case, I’m more worried about the total volume of the basin the the shape of the floor.

Select Create TIN From Features as shown above. A dialogue box will appear as shown in the next step.

In this example I need to ensure I’m using features from the S_Survey_Pts feature class. Points and Lines are valid input for this tool. If we did not select points as in the previous step, this tool would create a surface based off the entire S_Survey_Pts feature class. Notice also that I set the height source to the [El] field. The [El] field is in feet which is the same unit I’m using for my horizontal coordinates. This prevents me from having to use a Z conversion factor later on.

Here I’ve zoomed to the dam spillway. I want to calculate the storage capacity of the dam below the outlet weir. In the image you can see the elevation of the outlet weir to be 3810′. We want the volume of the structure below that plane.

Areas and volumes can easily be calculated from the 3D Analyst tool bar as shown above.

This is the dialogue box to calculate statistics about our surface. If you are working with multiple TIN surfaces, ensure you have the correct one selected. Then I change the value of the reference plane to the outlet elevation (3810′). I click the “… below plane” radio button and keep the Z factor value at 1 since our horizontal and verticle units are both in feet. All that is left is to let the extension calculate our areas and volume and optionally write these values to a text file. The text file is really useful if you want to compare the same site over time or perhaps see how different data sources can affect your results. The TIN need not be displayed to run this step. In fact if you are dealing with a very large surface it may be best not to display the layer if you have already verified that it was constructed the way you expected.