ArcGIS Urban Enterprise Release - Enabling 2 Way Sync Into Referenced GDB

Question

Hello There,

Is there a way to create an ArcGIS Urban Model that uses a referenced Feature Service? I want it to sync bidirectionally, so when I add or update buildings in the Feature Service, they automatically update in ArcGIS Urban.

Also, regarding extruding building footprints, the ArcGIS Urban API only supports queries. Is there a way to automate uploading footprints into scenarios without manual intervention, especially when dealing with multiple space types (e.g., 100 different types)?

tschmid · Answer

Hi @AhmedTarekAlhusainy

If I understand you correctly, you would like to automatically/periodically update the Urban database with your own external data layers, such as parcels and buildings stored in an SDE, for example. Is that correct? Unfortunately, Urban doesn't support this automatic/periodic update with external data sources. However, I think this is a great idea to further improve ArcGIS Urban. Please consider adding it to ArcGIS Urban Ideas.

To ensure data consistency, we highly advise against directly editing data in the Urban database. We strongly recommend using the ArcGIS Urban API instead. You find more information and explanation of how to get started with the ArcGIS Urban API in our documentation.

The queries and mutations that the API provides are all documented in the GraphiQL page. On this page, you can explore and try different Urban API calls. Click on the little book at the upper left corner to open the documentation of each query & mutation. If you search there for "createSpaces", you will find more information about this mutation. Similarly, there exists a "createParcels" mutation and much more.

I hope this information helps you to get started with the Urban API.

Please let me know if you have more questions.

AhmedTarekAlhusainy · Answer

Hello @Till_Schmid ,

We are not currently building an urban web application to update the urban database externally.

But simply we need to publish our urban database as referenced services, especially with Enterprise release, then somehow Automatically when updated in our SDE ( building, parcels, ..), it updates the urban parcels & Spaces.

Maybe this is will be triggered or scheduled by the model builder or Python API, but this takes us to another point which mapping schema, where we need to fetch a lot of related fields ( zoneID, ParcelID, ..Etc) and there is also some fields that we may consider it fixed values or user input ( urban event ID, SenarioID, ..etc)

I wish I could clarify my point to you could you please guide me to achieving this?

Regarding API I do read the documentation and did some search, and I could not find ant .createSpaces()

tschmid · Answer

Hi @AhmedTarekAlhusainy

Thank you for your questions and interest in ArcGIS Enterprise! Let me try to answer your questions below.

Is there a way to create an ArcGIS Urban Model that uses a referenced Feature Service? I want it to sync bidirectionally, so when I add or update buildings in the Feature Service, they automatically update in ArcGIS Urban.

ArcGIS Urban stores its data in hosted Features Services only. While the data can be imported from referenced feature services (e.g., parcels or zones), the Urban database itself is always stored as a hosted Feature Service.

I would be interested to learn more about this use case. If you are trying to update data in the Urban database from an external application, we recommend using the ArcGIS Urban API, which you already seem to be familiar with.

Also, regarding extruding building footprints, the ArcGIS Urban API only supports queries. Is there a way to automate uploading footprints into scenarios without manual intervention, especially when dealing with multiple space types (e.g., 100 different types)?

The ArcGIS Urban API also supports various mutations. Depending on what you are trying to achieve, the mutation.createSpaces() query could help you. This mutation allows you to programmatically create spaces (= building floors), each with a dedicated space use type. Like that, you can upload whole buildings with the Urban API.

Let me know if this helps. I am happy to answer any follow-up questions.

Best,

Till