Latest Contributions by AndyAston

I'm not positive this is the best-fit spot for my post.  I'm seeking feedback on a repeatable methodology for generating the "after" surface for input into the Cut Fill geoprocessing tool.  The big picture is we're a utility-scale solar developer and need a meaningful, in-house way to compare wildly different EPC contractor's cost-estimates for grading of our pre-construction "greenfield" sites.  In a relative way, the useable areas (i.e. ground-mounted "tracker" PV module array locations) of these projects are flat-ish, with minor terrain variation.  Typically, the aspect of these sites trend S to SW.  The "before" surface is derived from LiDAR.  Is there an industry standard methodology (or hack) to estimate the graded "after" surface based on the existing "before" surface, without oversimplifying it on a single plane and at a fixed average elevation or average slope across the project boundary? Or split them into "zonal areas" using the module array footprints?  Is there a formula expression to use in the Raster Calculator or a Raster Function that will estimate the grading based off the "before" surface?  Optionally, with parameter constraints to match the "tracker" PV module arrays' operational specs? Remember, at this point these sites are not fully surveyed and we're simply using the Cut Fill output to hopefully compare apples to apples from EPC contractor offers.  Thanks a million for your ideas and feedback!         ... View more

I'm new to advanced techniques in ModelBuilder.  I'm not successful with Help in this area (and running out of ideas) and request support from the GIS community.  Here's my central need: what's the feasibility of using in-line variable substitution to dynamically pull field attribution as a name input for a model's FC output?  I'm running ArcGIS for Desktop (v10.3.1)/ArcGIS Pro (v 1.1.1) Basic only. Here's the overall problem/need:  I need to automate the pre-processing of thousands of parcel datasets.  There are parcel boundary polygons (attribution contains unique IDs only) and parcel centroid points (attribution contains unique IDs and ownership) that need joined and exported to a new feature class (this staged data will be used later as input into other suitability modeling). Each input FC name contains a unique FIPS code (1 polygon with 1 matching point) used to perform the join.  First, an iterator (containing a second nested iterator) in my model cycles through each unique polygon and point pair to perform a tabular join and output the FC.  Conceptually, I hope to find a way for the output name to be more meaningful (i.e. the true county and state name represented by the FIPS code).  For example, "Parcels_06061" = "PlacerCountyCA".  The last piece of the puzzle is the FIPS "lookup" is a stand-alone table, it's not contained in the parcel polygons or points, but can be joined by FIPS code.  This table contains three fields: FIPS, county name and state name.  See attached screenshot for a representative visual. If it's doable (directly or indirectly) in ModelBuilder (or Python), please offer some ideas and guidance.  Thanks in advance for your feedback.  Have a great day and holidays! ... View more

I'm searching for enhanced Edit widget functions to the out-of-the-box tool.  Specifically, I need to build auto-calculate geometry (similar to the WAB Draw widget or a FGDB's Shape_Length or Shape_Area fields), as well as to edit existing line features (similar to the Continue Feature in Desktop), into my WAB app.  Is this functionality available in a custom widget built by the user community?  Thanks in advance for your feedback. ... View more

I’m stumped...I setup a custom WAB app (Dev Edition), including the out of the box Edit widget and a custom widget.  My Feature Layer has editing enabled and it's functional in the Web Map.  When I share it to my custom WAB template and click on the Edit widget I get this message: Feature creation is disabled for all layers.  No issues with a standard WAB template.  Ideas? ... View more

Please include the Magnifier window in ArcGIS Pro and update the functionality to support feature snapping with the crosshairs.  At present (ArcGIS for Desktop), if the Magnifier window magnification scale is too big the crosshairs are not as useful without snapping.  In addition to other applications, this is needed for utility mapping and/or large scale visual QA/QC. ... View more

This is my first Esri UC and hope to maximize the value of it.  What is the best way to connect with GIS professionals (individuals and/or groups) within the renewable energy (i.e. solar) industry?  Thanks in advance for your feedback. ... View more

Add two-way functionality to the Transpose geoprocessing tool.  Right now, it will not allow switching of unique row values to fields, only the opposite. ... View more