Slowness when executing "Extract Multi Values to Points"

Question

has anyone notice the slowness when executing "Extract Multi Values to Points" tool in ArcGIS 10? It takes at least 3 minutes 20 seconds to run a shapefile that has 7000 records against a raster data. I also tried to run "Extract Values to Point" tool (which create a new shapefile with extracted value). It runs only 7 seconds and produced correct results.  The results of the extracted values that are outside of the raster data for "Extract Multi Values to Points" create "0" as null value, but in "Extract Values to Points" create "-9999" as null value. The oracle database, read "0" as a value not null. Does that consider a bug?

I need to run the my shapefile against 12 raster data with "Extract Multi Values to Points" tool because I don't want to create new shapefiles for every raster that I am extracting the value from.
Is there any alternative? or fixes on this?

Thanks,
Linda

DaveVerbyla · Answer

The fastest method I've found is to run the Sample tool to create
a table of raster values for each point, rename the table fields to more
descriptive field names, then create an X,Y event layer from the table.

LindaKoki · Answer

I run into this problem a lot and it is very frustrating. Did you check if the process runs faster when the points are in a file geodatabase as opposed to in a shapefile? I am running a process now with a shapefile and a mix of raster types and it has already been running for 40 minutes.

Yes, read my above thread. I tested it by converting my shapefile into a file geodatabase and run the tool against with 12 raster datasests & it was way faster than running with shapefile.... I am wondering if I import all my feature class and raster into SDE, will it run even faster?

ClintonJenkins · Answer

Ok. To test this issue further, I imported the shapefile into File Geodatabase and reran "Extract Multi Values to Points" against with 12 raster datasets. It finished in 4 mintues and 51 seconds. The timing is acceptable as a part of my model. It also takes care of null values. It sets null value as "0" when shapefile is the input & set " " as null values for File Geodatabase.

Linda

I run into this problem a lot and it is very frustrating. Did you check if the process runs faster when the points are in a file geodatabase as opposed to in a shapefile? I am running a process now with a shapefile and a mix of raster types and it has already been running for 40 minutes.