Exporting Data Driven Pages to JPEG - modeling export location as parameter

[JerryGarcia1]

Hello,

I am still new to Python and I am stuck on how to allow the user of the tool to set the location of the resulting JPEGs. The script I have so far is below

import arcpy,os,sys

import arcpy.mapping

import arcpy.utils

import arcpy.arcobjects

import_path = r"C:\GIS_DATA\Python_Scripts\python_jpeg_example.mxd"   # Path of .mxd

export_path = r"C:\GIS_DATA\Python_Scripts"   # Path of output file

field_name = "DIST_NAME" # Name of field used to sort DDP

mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(import_path)

for i in range(1, mxd.dataDrivenPages.pageCount + 1):

   mxd.dataDrivenPages.currentPageID = i

   row = mxd.dataDrivenPages.pageRow

   print row.getValue(field_name)

   print export_path + "." + row.getValue(field_name) + ".jpg"

   arcpy.mapping.ExportToJPEG(mxd, export_path + "." + row.getValue(field_name) + ".jpg")

del mxd

When adding the tool in I set the export path as a parameter (set to workspace). No mater where it is set it always drops it in c:\GIS_DATA.  I thought I could use GetParameterAsText but I want the user to navigate to the folder they want the JPEGs to reside instead of having to type in the location.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

[AdrianWelsh]

I know the Python hot shots on this board will chime in with excellent answers. I have used the Tkinter module for opening a browse file dialog (well, really the tkFileDialog). Here is a brief example I found on Stack Exchange:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19944712/browse-for-file-path-in-python

This may work for you

(plus, it will help for you to format your code in your forum post as code instead of just text)

[PeterWilson · Accepted solution]

Hi Jerry

The reason that its writing the results out to "C:\GIS_DATA" is that the export path has been set to that directory manually. What you want to do is set the input_mxd and output_folder to become arguments that you can supply as the user of the script.  You need to set your input_mxd and output_folder variables to arcpy.GetParameterAsText to change the input and output arguments for each time you run the script as a tool within ArcGIS. I've cleaned your code a bit and gave explanations why.

'''
Created on Feb 17, 2016

Export Data Driven Pages

to jpegs

@author: PeterW
'''
# I've removed the unnecessary modules that you imported

# import modules and site-packages
import os
import arcpy

# set input and output arguments
input_mxd = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(0)
output_folder = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(1)
field_name = r"DIST_NAME"

# export each data driven page out as a jpeg 
mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(input_mxd)
for i in range(1, mxd.dataDrivenPages.pageCount + 1):
    mxd.dataDrivenPages.currentPageID = i
    row = mxd.dataDrivenPages.pageRow
    # I've created a variable page_name to store the current page name
    page_name = row.getValue(field_name)
    arcpy.AddMessage("Processing {}".format(page_name))
    # I've used os.path.join to join the path and file name for the output jpegs
    arcpy.mapping.ExportToJPEG(mxd, os.path.join(output_folder,  page_name + ".jpg"))
del mxd

[JerryGarcia1]

Thanks for all your help!

[PeterWilson]

Pleasure Jerry

[gcastro]

Hi, could you explain me how to set the input and output parameters?