topic ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop? in Developers Questions

ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

LevNagdimunov — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 17:05:05 GMT

ArcPy for ArcGIS Pro seems more limited than the Desktop ArcPy in crucial ways.

The older ArcPy had the ``arcpy.mapping.UpdateLayer`` function, which could (with the last parameter set to true) update symbology on a layer from a template layer. No such function (or replacement for it) appears to exist in the new ArcPy, unless I am missing it? This is a crucial capability given how limited ArcPy is in terms of directly manipulating symbology, for example for rasters there seems to be essentially no way to modify any symbology now.

There is still the ``arcpy.ApplySymbologyFromLayer_management`` tool. However this tool does not work for all layers (nor did it in Desktop), for example it executes without error but seems to do nothing for symbology of a raster layer of a mosaic, whether you apply symbology from a raster layer to the mosaic raster layer or symbology from an entire mosaic to the entire mosaic.

Separately but related, the functionality of ``arcpy.mapping.UpdateLayerTime`` is also gone, and seems to have no replacement. The entire ability to deal with time appears to be gone, for example layer.time no longer seems to exist for time-enabled layers (also according to the docs).

I am surprised to find such crucial features removed. Has something replaced them that I was not able to find, or is something slated to?

Re: ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

DanPatterson_Retired — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 17:21:24 GMT

The mapping module has been changed... plus more additions

Have a look through the Arcpy Tree

Re: ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

LevNagdimunov — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 18:09:14 GMT

I have looked at it, carefully, prior to making the post. I cannot find any replacement to the functionality described above.

There seems to be no functionality to replace symbology based on a template (aside from what was mentioned in the original post), no real additional functionality to manipulate symbology directly, and essentially nothing at all to deal with time. If I missed some, please let me know. This functionality was there before.

Re: ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

DanPatterson_Retired — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 18:23:46 GMT

Unsupported formats would preclude anything arcpy functionality associated with them of course....

Several data formats are not currently supported in ArcGIS Pro, including raster catalogs, geometric networks, topologies, schematic datasets, geodatabase servers, ArcMap document templates, ArcReader documents, graphs, tiled map packages, and personal geodatabases.

And renaming and reshuffling so would Migrating from...

arcpy.mapping to arcpy.ma and its associated changes..

So if the functionality isn't in Pro or has been added to the...

What's new list it isn't available yet, and that was made quite clear that Pro want' going to be an exact replica when it was released and its changes will be implemented in due time.

Since it is basically free, I would continue to do what you need to do in ArcMap if it isn't available in Pro.

I would also warn people to get up to speed in Python 3.x... 2.7 is terminal and 3.x has been out for over 8 years and the changes in it are more significant than the changes in arcpy!

Re: ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

LevNagdimunov — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 18:33:45 GMT

I am working on supported data formats: simple rasters and mosaic datasets, where ESRI has been especially pushing the latter. Yet basic functionality that use to be in ArcPy appears missing, and has not been replaced by anything I can find. Most of the functionality you mentioned is likely not coming back as those data formats are essentially deprecated, but how can basic features of the API be deprecated.

Non-backwards compatible changes in Python 2.7 to 3.x are likely to more minor than changes in ArcPy for most codes written specifically for the latter, in my opinion. I am trying to rewrite a code that works in ArcPy for Desktop to also work for Pro, and am stopped by the fact that basic functionality does not appear to be there for ArcPy in Pro.

Re: ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

DanPatterson_Retired — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 18:36:09 GMT

Lev

You will have to keep an eye on the What's new list link... they are pretty quick to announce any changes in functionality as it arrives.

Re: ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

JeffBarrette — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 15:32:11 GMT

Hello Lev,

I'm with the Esri Python map automation team. I really appreciate your feedback. There is no question that we need more capabilities in Pro to reach ArcMap equivalency. You bring up two very good examples: UpdateLayer and UpdateTime. Please understand that we are aware of most of the missing pieces and have our best intentions of getting them into the core arcpy.mp module.

We do NOT have a replacement for UpdateLayer in 2.0 (or even the upcoming 2.1 release). UpdateLayer was mostly used at transferring symbology from a layer file to another layer. It worked really well for transferring that symbology from a similar layer file to another similar layer but it broke down quickly if data ranges, feature types, etc were different. So rather than focusing our time on UpdateLayer - we spend a lot of time exposing Symbology in the Pro arcpy.mp API (which we got overwhelming requests for) . Now you can explicitly change renderers (5 supported in 2.0 and more to come in future releases), and even get down to the individual items/classes and change symbol properties. So in a way, the new symbology API provides an alternative approach to UpdateLayer. That is NOT to say it is a replacement or we won't eventually provide an UpdateLayer equivalent, it is just not on our near-term lists. We want to make improvements to it because, like I said, it was good with symbology but lacked other common capabilities like updating ONLY specific properties of a layer. For example, a common request we get is to update ONLY field aliases. We would love to hear more feedback on this.

UpdateTime is something we have prioritized for 2.2. We know time is crucial to map automation scenarios and we hoped to get it in sooner but time ran out (bad pun intended).

For 2.1 we be exposing:

- MapSeries (DataDrivenPages) capabilities

- WebMapPrinting capabilities

- ConvertWebMapToArcGISProject

- MapView class

- ConvertLayoutFileToLayout

- And other mics members like ActiveMap, etc.

Thanks again for your feedback!

Jeff Barrette

Re: ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

JoshuaBixby — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 15:52:38 GMT

Jeff, thanks for all of the information, good stuff. Given the GUI completely changed from ArcMap to ArcGIS Pro, as opposed to data access, geoprocessing tools, etc..., it is clear that Pro's mapping module involved a lot more effort than other parts of ArcPy. As much as I think there is still lots of room for improvement/enhancement with Pro mapping module, I think some of the new features are great, like more direct access to renderers. It is just too bad some of that direct access to renderers can't be backported to ArcMap.

Re: ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

LevNagdimunov — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 13:36:05 GMT

Thank you for the reply Jeff, a lot of interesting information.

In terms of improving capabilities of symbology manipulation directly rather than something like UpdateLayer, certainly the former is a welcome addition. However there does not appear to be support for manipulating RGB or Stretched symbology for rasters (unless I am misunderstanding the docs), which seem likely to be the two most popular raster symbologies. Are there any near term plans to add such support?

In terms of UpdateTime making a come back in 2.2, great to hear and I definitely think that would be useful along with the capability to again access the time properties at-all (e.g. layer's time attribute).

Re: ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

JeffBarrette — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 14:01:53 GMT

Lev - Raster stretched is definitely on the list for 2.2 (as well as UnclassedColors and ProportionalSymbols). We did not have the time to finish it (them) for 2.1. I will look into RGB as being a possibility.

Jeff

Re: ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

HopeWorkswell — Mon, 15 Jan 2018 05:09:46 GMT

Hello Lev:

I've been using Pro 2.0.1 now and I ran into the same question as you did. I saw this thread and I came up with a solution, though it might not suit for every cases, but it is still a solution!

The idea is that inside the arcpy.mp layer class(the class you use Map.listLayers()[0] to get) there's a property called symbology. It has read and write access. So what you can do is to pre-set a symbology lyrx file and add it as layer class into map class, then extract it's symbology as a variable. Then you remove this symbology layer, add the layer you really want, assign the symbology variable as the new value for the layer's symbology property. Then you save it and export images.

Here is my code:

output_aprx = arcpy.mp.ArcGISProject(output_aprx_pth)# read it as object using arcpy, then to modify it
#Working on converting input feature class to a layer inside aprx project file
Map = output_aprx.listMaps("Map")[0]
Layout = output_aprx.listLayouts()[0]
title = Layout.listElements("TEXT_ELEMENT")[0]# Get the title object
title.text = "DC "+ outname# Change the text message of title to what we want

if symbology == 0:
   Map.addLayer(input_lyrF, "TOP")
else:
   sym_lyrF = arcpy.mp.LayerFile(symbology)
   Map.addLayer(sym_lyrF, "TOP")
   sym_layer = Map.listLayers()[0]
   sym_obj = sym_layer.symbology
   Map.removeLayer(sym_layer)
   Map.addLayer(input_lyrF)
   input_layer = Map.listLayers()[0]
   input_layer.symbology = sym_obj
output_aprx.save()# Save the edits
Layout.exportToJPEG(outmaps_path + name_element + ".jpg", resolution = out_resolution)

I tried it on simple symbol and graduate color, everything works fine.

Re: ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

LevNagdimunov — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 16:08:13 GMT

Thanks for the reply Hope. I would guess that this works for the layers whose symbology manipulation is supported, which are listed under the Symbology class description for ArcGIS Pro. I believe the two you listed are on there. However, the following exception is raised when I try this for stretched or RGB symbology,

NameError: The attribute 'symbology' is not supported on this instance of Layer.

When simply getting the symbology attribute, things work (although it has no real properties to look at for non-supported symbologies). This error is coming from setting the symbology attribute, where ArcPy catches an exception stemming from,

gp.getIDMessage(89013,"The attribute %r is not supported on this instance of %s.") %

Please let me know if you think I am doing something wrong here.

Re: ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

BorjaParés_Fuente — Tue, 09 Oct 2018 09:45:40 GMT

Hi,

I'm experience the same behavior with a raster layer (extension .jp2) and trying to apply RGB symbology.

Is there any workaround to solve this issue?

Thanks in advance.

Re: ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

JustinConnerWR — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 21:28:24 GMT

Was the raster stretch support implemented, and if so, any way to switch to "custom" stats w/ arcpy to set min/max the same across a set of rasters?

Re: ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

JeffBarrette — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 15:01:52 GMT

We unfortunately have not extended the number of supported renderers and this includes the 2.3 release due out at the beginning of next year. We currently plan to have something available at 2.4 that will give you finer grained access to ALL renderers.

Jeff - arcpy.mp team

Re: ArcPy in Pro more limited than in Desktop?

StefanKoch — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 13:46:03 GMT

A few years later, still no such functions UpdateLayer and UpdateTime in arcpy.mp - why? Still have to use ArcMap?