Add Geometry Attributes GP tool: Fields should be dynamic

Bud

Add Geometry Attributes (Data Management)

The values in these fields are not automatically recalculated after edits. If you edit the features, you'll need to run this tool again to update the field values.

It would be great if those fields were dynamic, similar to the Shape_Length field in the attribute table, but as optional fields (they could be turned off by default, to avoid unnecessary performance hits). For example, it would be helpful to have dynamic fields for:

• Startpoint, midpoint, and endpoint
• Part count and point count

This functionality wouldn't necessarily need to be a GP tool. Instead, what if we could just open the Design > Fields window in ArcGIS Pro, and then just click a checkbox to make the geometry attributes visible? That might be ideal...just like we can do for the dynamic Shape_Length field.

I'm aware that those values can be calculated using attribute rules. That is technically possible, but some of those Arcade calculations are non-trivial, such as getting the midpoint.

Many of the fields in the "Add Geometry Attributes" tool would be helpful to a large number of organizations. Why make of us all fumble around with custom Arcade scripts to calculate them? Why not just do it OOTB through ArcObjects/default fields?

joyoung_kerrvilletx

It would be great to setup geometry fields that automatically calculated the specified geometry attribute per field as records are inserted or updated. The current Add Geometry Attributes or the Calculate Geometry Attributes tools are great for processing bulk calculations efficiently, but I like the idea of marking a field as a geometry field so that it is automatically populated as features are inserted or geometry is updated.

I image this being a checkbox when adding a new field to mark the field as a geometry field. Then expose parameters for type of geometry (x, y, z, x & y, etc), coordinates format, and projection to use just like the existing geoprocessing tools. The only time I see this being a major performance hit is loading/appending lots of data at one time. Maybe there could be a flag to pause calculating geometry fields until the end of that tool and then do a more efficient bulk calculation?