Using All ArcGIS Tools in R

[TravisSondgerath]

The arcgisbinding pacakge has a few nice functions for accessing ArcGIS data within R and then writing it back to a shapefile after manipulation, however will we ever be able to access all ArcMap/ArcGIS Pro tools via R eventually similar to arcPy?

[DanPatterson_Retired · Accepted solution]

I don't think the intent is to do stuff in R, but perhaps to do stuff in arc* that uses R functionality.  The arcpy interface is written by esri and can't be used in standalone (ie you need to have arcmap/pro installed).  I suspect the R interface is similar to allowing people to use numpy, scipy and matplot within and arc* installed environment.  In fact, much of R functionality can be done with other python based packages, such as the aforementioned.

[BrettRose]

Dan is correct. The R-ArcGIS bridge is designed to help R users access feature data in Geodatabases and/or shape files. Also, R developers can create Geoprocessing tools for GIS users in much the same way Python developers create python GP tools.