Zoom Dependent on If Point is Within Frame

Question

Hi All,

At the last stages of this script I'm writing and this is just one of those "would be nice to have" options.

Situation is that I have two polygons that "usually" contain a point when you zoom to them. In some cases if you zoom to the two polygons the point is outside of the frame (ie. off the map) and I need to zoom out a bit to show the two polygons and the point. I'm looking for some kind of check to say "if polygon is not on map, zoom out to the best zoom to include both polygons and point, else, zoom to two polygons"

Is this possible without getting too tricky? If it's not, really not a big deal but there are maybe 5 maps out of 250+ that will have to be reprinted if I can't include this check. Thanks in advance

BenjaminGale · Answer

One way you could check this is to see if the dataframe's extent contains the point layer's extent.
import arcpy

mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument("C:\GIS\dfTest\Map1.mxd")
mxd.activeView = "PAGE_LAYOUT"

df = arcpy.mapping.ListDataFrames(mxd)[0] 
lyr = arcpy.mapping.Layer('point')

#Test if df extent contains the extent for the layer symbology
df.extent.contains(lyr.getExtent("True"))

JoelMadero · Answer

If you want performance it would be fastest I would imagine to check the XY extent of your dataframe against the XY position of your point to see if it is greater than your max X and Y extents, or lesser than your min X and Y extents.

This sounds promising. Any way that you can link me to an example or provide one for me (appreciate the help by the way).

My layers are:

Consolidations (Field is Precinct)
Polls (field is PollID)

MathewCoyle · Answer

If you want performance it would be fastest I would imagine to check the XY extent of your dataframe against the XY position of your point to see if it is greater than your max X and Y extents, or lesser than your min X and Y extents.