Latest Contributions by BrandonNelson1

I'm trying to use the Manage Tile Cache tool (ManageTileCache_management, not the server tool ManageMapServerCacheTiles_server) in a Python script to create a tile cache dataset for some of our data.  According to the documentation, it can be used to "create new tiles, replace missing tiles, overwrite outdated tiles, and delete tiles." (Emphasis mine.)  From the descriptions of the in_cache_location and in_cache_name parameters, and being unable to find much in the way of examples, I assumed that passing a value (the dataset name) for in_cache_name would create a tile cache, and passing None (and using the full dataset path in in_cache_location) would update an existing tile cache. I was able to successfully create a tile cache based on this assumption. However, trying to update the cache later on, the latter method (in_cache_location="path/to/dataset", in_cache_name=None) caused an error 000735 "Cache Name: Value is required" (despite that in_cache_name is labelled "optional" in the documentation), while the former (in_cache_location="path/to/", in_cache_name="dataset") caused an error 000258 "Output already exists" (well, that was the plan, and now I want to update it). That said, how do I use this tool to update a tile cache?  Am I doing something wrong? or is this a bug I'll need to work around? ... View more

Currently, when you convert a segment to a bezier curve or circular arc, ArcMap sets the control points to create a big, conspicuous curve.  This interrupts the workflow because it requires the user to adjust the control points to a more meaningful shape, and leaves the user vulnerable to accidently creating self-intersecting geometry that takes extra time to repair or undo.  It would be better to change this behavior (or at least provide an option) so that it affects the segment type but not the shape, instead setting the control points to match or best approximate the original segment.   As an example, I have been converting some complex features, that consist of mixed straight sections and "curved" sections (approximated by many straight segments), into features with true curves.  Short of manually editing each section that needs adjustment, I have two main procedures to use: For features with mostly curves, I "Generalize" to remove nearly colinear points, then "Smooth" to produce the bezier segments, and finally revert the rest back to straight segments.  Some of the curved segments now still have extra bulges (mostly at corners) that need to be adjusted. For features that are mostly straight segments, I again "Generalize", then manually convert the sections that need to be curved into beziers.  Each segment must be changed to bezier, severely distorting the shape, then manually adjusted to match the original shape and produce a continuous curve. A possible exception/extension to always "best fitting" the shape could be when converting a segment to bezier that lies between two other beziers; in this case it may be desirable to also try to produce a continuous curve at the endpoints. (I think this idea is similar to https://c.na9.visual.force.com/apex/ideaView?id=087E00000004Pj0IAE, but I'd specifically like to see the behavior of the editor change rather than have a new tool.) ... View more

I have an ArcPy script that worked with ArcGIS Desktop 10.1, but after upgrading to 10.3, it fails trying to MakeFeatureLayer:  error 000732, "Dataset ... does not exist or is not supported").  I'm 100% sure the dataset exists and the path is correct.  Executing the command manually from the Python CLI results in the same error, but from within ArcMap or ArcCatalog it succeeds; I see the same behavior on several different machines. Has this occurred for anyone before?  Where else can I look to determine the source of the problem? PS:  Oddly enough, running the command and/or script from Python on our GP server (not ArcGIS Server; it runs regular maintenance GP tasks) does work, even though as far as I'm aware the software is set up almost identically.  Of course the server has more memory, but would that make a difference for something like creating a feature layer? ... View more