Connecting to WFS in ArcGIS Pro

[MiguelParedes]

Greetings All,

I have just installed the Data Interoperability extension for ArcGIS Pro.  Does anyone know how do I create an Interoperability connection so that I can connect to a WFS?  I thought this would be similar to ArcGIS Desktop, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

Also, I have not been able to find documentation on how to perform interoperability connections either, so if anyone could just point me in the right direction, that would be fantastic.

Many thanks in advance.

[MarcoBoeringa]

Looking at this ArcGIS Pro Help page:

Connect to a GIS server—ArcGIS Pro | ArcGIS for Desktop

It is at least clear that directly connecting a WFS is not (yet) supported. There is no mention of WFS servers there, just WMS and TWMS as OGC options.

This page though, does reference WFS, but shows you must convert the data to a Feature Class first before being able to use it (which the data operability extension maybe also does?):

An overview of the From WFS toolset—Conversion toolbox | ArcGIS for Desktop

It is in the Conversion toolbox. I just gave it a try with a WFS link I picked from the internet, but although it correctly sees the available layers of the service, it failed when trying to do the actual conversion. Don't forget to set the Environments as well, it probably defaults to current extent, but you don't want to start loading a ton of WFS data for a service with detailed data covering a large area.

[MiguelParedes]

Greetings Marco,

Thank you for your comment.  What I was trying to ascertain is not whether there is a function that allows the transformation of a feature layer in a WFS service, to a FC in an FGDB, but whether is was possible to connect to a WFS by means of the Data Interoperability Extension for Pro, as one would do in ArcGIS Desktop.

The documentation for Pro on the subject, seems to have been cut and pasted from the ArcGIS Desktop help.  Not very helpful.

Oh, and by the way, I can confirm your experience; I tried converting a layer from a WFS using the WFS to FC in Pro, and even though the procedure manages to show the available layers in the WFS, it fails when attempting the conversion.  The service I was attempting to convert is sourced by GeoServer.

Many thanks again.

[BruceHarold]

Hello

Interoperability connections are not yet supported in ArcGIS Pro.

Are you able to share the Geoserver WFS service details with our support people?  We would like to look into your experience of not retrieving features.

[MiguelParedes]

Greetings Bruce,

Many thanks for the clarification. I thought that would be the case, but I just wanted to make sure, given that it isn't explicitly documented.

I have raised a support case already.  The WFS is publicly available from the data.gov.uk website.  Here is the page from that site to the service in question.  I have also tried to access the WFS using FME 2016.1 Esri Edition, and have been somewhat successful accessing individual layers, but not multiple ones, not even two.

Just out of curiosity, do you know in which version of Pro will the capability to create Interoperability connections become available?

Many thanks again for your help.  Much appreciated.

[MarcoBoeringa]

@Bruce Harold:

The WFS connection I tried to access is on this address:

https://geodata.nationaalgeoregister.nl/digitaaltopografischbestand/wfs

It is a governmental extremely high detail +/-1:1000-1:5000 scale map of the entire highway system in the Netherlands. The WFS is by default limited to a max request size of 15k features according to the Dutch metadata page.

As said, when I enter this URL in the ArcGIS Pro WFS To Feature Class tool, it does recognize the layers ("punten", "lijnen" en "vlakken" for points, lines and polygons in Dutch) in Select Feature Type To Extract parameter, but can't convert them.

NOTE(!): data is almost certainly in the Dutch coordinate system, listed as "RD New" under Projected Coordinate Systems / Europe / National Grids in ArcGIS Pro (and ArcMap). I would recommend to zoom in on a ESRI Basemap near e.g. Amsterdam, look for a nice junction, and then set the coordinate system to RD New and set an appropriate transformation if needed for e.g. the basemap (not needed for the WFS as most like RD New), ArcGIS has one. Subsequently set the Environment for the WFS To Feature Class tool to "Current Extent", to avoid downloading an excessive amount of data.

This is what I did, I certainly did not attempt to download the entire Netherlands, just a single highway junction, which should be well below the 15k features download limit.

[JoshuaBixby]

On a procedural note, this question is marked as a discussion instead of a question.  Asking questions as questions allows you to mark one of the responses correct if it helps you, thus giving credit for the effort and answer.

[curtvprice]

It looks like made it into "core" ArcGIS Pro 2.0.

Use WFS services layers—Services | ArcGIS Desktop