Add ability to check if specified features are visible in current map frame extent

CayerA

I am working on a script that iterates through a grid feature class, zooms/pans to the next square of the grid and outputs a PDF, compiling them all into one PDF to be printed into an atlas booklet. This is an internal script that has been rewritten many times to accommodate different uses for different departments and agencies. For this one, we want to show text on the pages that don't show the relevant feature class: "This page does not contain any [feature class] features". I found a way to do this by grabbing the extent of the map frame camera, creating a polygon of it, selecting the features that intersect and then adding the text to the pages that do not have a selection.

I'm thinking there's at least two ways this process could be shortened:

• allow an extent property to be used as an input feature for a selection
• add a Boolean property to the Layer class that indicates the presence/absence of specified features visible in a mapframe's current camera extent

Currently, the {Layer}.visible() Boolean seems to only check if the layer is toggled visible in the table of contents, so I'm not sure what it might be called. {Layer}.isVisible() might be too confusing.

CayerA

Here's what I ended up coming up with. It's not the prettiest, but it gets the job done.

# Add NO ARTERIAL TEXT for pages without arterial classifications...
    mainMF = mf.map
    layer_name = "ArterialClass"
    arterialLyr = next((lyr for lyr in mainMF.listLayers() if lyr.name == layer_name), None)
    # GET MAPFRAME EXTENT AND CREATE TEMPORARY POLYGON FEATURE FROM IT
    mfExtent = mf.camera.getExtent()
    extentPoly = mfExtent.polygon
    arcpy.env.workspace = 'memory'
    arcpy.env.overwriteOutput = True
    if arcpy.Exists(r'memory\featLyr'):
        print('featLyr exists... deleting...')
        arcpy.management.DeleteFeatures(r'memory\featLyr')
    # CREATE TEMPORARY ARTERIAL CLASS FEATURE LAYER IN MEMORY
    print('creating featLyr')
    featLyr = arcpy.MakeFeatureLayer_management(arterialLyr, r'memory\featLyr')
    # SELECT ANY ARTERIAL FEATURES THAT INTERSECT WITH THE MAPFRAME POLYGON
    arcpy.SelectLayerByLocation_management(featLyr, "INTERSECT", select_features=extentPoly, selection_type="NEW_SELECTION")
    # CHECK IF ANY FEATURES ARE SELECTED
    # IF ANY ARE SELECTED, TEXT ELEMENT IS MODIFIED TO SHOW THAT THE PAGE SHOWS NO ARTERIAL CLASS FEATURES
    selected_count = int(arcpy.management.GetCount(featLyr)[0])
    if selected_count > 0:
        print(f"{selected_count} feature(s) visible in the camera's current extent.")
    else:
        print(f"{selected_count} features visible in the camera's current extent.")
        print(f'ArterialClass is not visible within map frame extent')
        print("Page " + str(page_number) + " is a no arterial classification page.")
        for elm in lyt.listElements("TEXT_ELEMENT", "*"):
            if elm.name == "NoArtText":
                elm.text = "THERE ARE NO \r ARTERIAL CLASSIFICATIONS \r ON THIS PAGE"
    print('clearing selection')
    # CLEAR SELECTION AND DELETE TEMPORARY FEATURES
    arcpy.SelectLayerByAttribute_management(featLyr, selection_type="CLEAR_SELECTION")
    if arcpy.Exists(r'memory\featLyr'):
        print('temp exists... deleting...')
        arcpy.management.DeleteFeatures(r'memory\featLyr')
    if arcpy.Exists(featLyr):
        print('featLyr exists... deleting...')
        arcpy.management.DeleteFeatures(featLyr)
    arcpy.ClearWorkspaceCache_management('memory')