Latest Contributions by ModernElectric

Have you ever thought of an alternate method than ArcReader to provide maps to your endusers?  If you have ArcGIS Server, you probably could configure a FlexViewer application that would no longer require you to install software onto these computers.  FlexViewer has some excellent custom widgets that mimic some of the functionality of ArcMap and ArcReader in terms of searches including related data. I would like nothing more than to have ArcGIS Service since it would open the doors for many more things. However, the powers to be have selected to stick with ArcGIS for Desktop and ArcReader and have no plans on budgeting for ArcGIS Server. So, I am kind of stuck..... ... View more

Eric-    I have done some of the same stuff that you are talking about. Depending on what you are currently using will depend on how much I can help and offer assistance. What type of ArcGIS products are you using and what company/software are you using for your smart meters. I have tried to make it as simple as possible - by bringing in live data from an Oracle Database into GIS through an ODBC connection by joining data into GIS and specifying different symbols. The data through the ODBC connection is usually live from the smart meter database and GIS is used to produce the reading data in a visual way. Let me know. I have a question, I'm pretty sure I know the answer to it but I want to confirm with others.  Is it possible to somehow tie our smart meter outage data in GIS without using a 3rd party solution like Telvent? I'm in the process of building our electric network in GIS, and it has been asked of me to try and do this without a 3rd party application.  I'm not very familiar with our electric meter technology but I'm not sure that this is possible.  I just want to know if this is possible to do and if so how to go about it. ... View more

Mike- Thank you for posting. Since I started the post, I have done alot with our GIS system that I would like to share so other GIS users in the electric industry might be able to use to assist their company. Infrastructure Inventory Assessment:    We recently rolled out an infrastructure wide audit of our current electric system. Our GIS model was rebuilt from a stand-alone AutoCAD drawing composed from decades of hand-drawn maps. Since the company has never done an in-depth audit - we needed to determine and verify what we had mapped was correct. Also - tons of data was missing that had never been collected. It was broken out into multiple phases.         Phase 1: Pole Inspection and Numbering: Had a linesman go to each pole to complete an inspection to determine it's integrity. Since the company has never done a pole by pole inspection - this allowed us to determine which poles were getting past their life span and needed replacement. We also collected addition information on the pole (type, year manufactured, class, and damage) that I was able to run analysis on and put together a map/list of poles to replace over the next couple of years. At the same time - a company number was attached to the pole.                   How this has helped: This made it easier to catalog our pole inventory ArcGIS. It has also become handy incase of an emergency for fire/police. In the case of a car hit pole/pole top fire, they are able to tell us the number and run a fast query in GIS to zoom to it's location. Also - on street light outage - a customer can tell us what pole the light is on by telling us a simple number - instead if trying to interrupt their explination of it's location.        Phase 2: Pole Top Assembly & Street Light Audit: Went back through the system and visted each pole and determined what the pole was made-up of. AutoCAD was used to construct every possiable assembly we use in our company. A detail for each assembly was built with the type and number of inventory items that was used to construct it. At the same time - each pole that had a street light attached was checked. We compared what was currently in the GIS model (Type, Arm legth, bulb wattage) with what was really in the field.                   How this has helped: Once it was complete - our FIS system was updated with the true/current number in units in current use for analysis and accounting purposed. The street light field aduit allowed us to cross reference what was found in the field with our CIS data to make sure the billing was correct.       Phase 3: Joint Use Audit: Previously - our joint use data was updated by contractor/joint use company's submissions. We wanted to verify what we had in our records was true in the field. Again - each pole was visted to determine which joint use company and type of attachment was on each pole.                 How this has helped: This made sure our Joint Use data was correct and up to date. It made sure we were properly billing the company's that were attached to our pole(s). Also - when a pole was replaced - we were sure the correct companys were notified so they could move to the new pole. How this was accomplished: ArcMap with ArcPad and a Trimble Nomad "G" Series. Data from a File Geodatabase with Domains (used as drop-down menus in ArcPad) checked-out to the Nomad. Data was collected by a lineman directly into the device (Drop-Downs, barcode scanner and Photos). The data was than imported directly into the working File Geodatabase and used for further analysis and reporting. Meter Usage & Demand Data:      Previously - our engineering and meter department would either have to go into the CIS/TWACs system to find out the usage and demand on a given meter. In order to determine the demand of that meter and/or the transformer - a hand calculation had to be done. NOW - The data is exported from the CIS system each quarter. After running mutliple ArcGIS tools - the end result is a visual graph (Meter Usage, Meter Demand, Transformer Usage/Demand) is created showing the data over a 2 year period and attached (In the form of a .PDF) to the matching object. Now - instead of searching through different systems and doing hand calculations - our engineers and meter techs can run a query in GIS for a specific meter/transformer bank and visually see the data for making decisions. CIS/GIS Integration: Data in our Customer and Billing database is constantly changing and being updated by different people and departments. Other GIS Users (Operational Supervisors, Engineering Departments, Meter Department) rely heavily on data related to the infrastructure along with customer account attributes. Instead of cross-referencing back and forth between GIS and CIS - I have integrated data directly into GIS. I have constructed a series of Python Scripts that automatically pull data from the Oracle Database to update specific attributes in the GIS system (Customer information, meter data, billing records, ETC). This happens everynight through a Task Scheduler. This way - the users of GIS have up to date information on one system. This also prevents having to update the same information in different locations/ systems. I am always looking for additional projects to update our current electric GIS system that other departments within our company can benefit from (Engineering, CIS, Meter Department, ETC). Hi Chris, I realize this post is over a year old but I like this topic and wanted to push it to the top to see if we can get more people to respond. Over the last 8 years I was fortunate to work with 30+ utilities here are some solutions I saw. Vegetation cycle analysis and data management - traditionally utilities manage their cycles by feeder/circuit and by year but some foresters have realized they can leverage spatial analysis and in some cases inventory trees (e.g. danger, species) to have more impact on trim budgets and reliability. Reliability analysis - there are many factors to reliability analysis including historical outages, vegetation cycles, pole inspections to name a few and each has a spatial component.  Through spatial analysis you can determine where you have reliability problems today and trend where they will be showing up down the road.  This is great information for engineers to fix the problem and for operations to help during storms. Damage assessment - determining the impact of a storm or event as quickly as possible is important to the restoration process.  Traditionally utilities use a standard paper form filled out in the field and radios/phones to call into dispatch.  What I learned is while this process works, in most cases, there is a lag in the flow of information.  There are many utilities that turned to their ArcGIS platform to automate the field collection process using smart devices and send the damage to the office in near real-time, including pictures and material needed.  This new process has proven to be beneficial in reducing outages, better estimated time of restoration (ETR) numbers, and internal and external communications. So here is a start hopefully others will chime into the conversation [/HR] Mike Goggin RAMTeCH Software Solutions ... View more

Chris- Thank you for the past (2) posts. I will look at both ideas and see what I can come up with. Guess I should have said I am working on ArcMap 10.2 Also, instead of creating a list of each "TWACs_NUMBER", and running a seperate cursor for each one, just run a single cursor and store the lists in a dictionary, where each twacNo is a key and each key points to a list of meterNos. In v10.1 this would look like: twacDict = {} searchRows = arcpy.da.SearchCursor(table, ["TWACs_NUMBER","METER_NUMBER"]) for searchRow in searchRows:    twacNo, meterNo = searchRow    if twacNo in twacDict:       twacDict[twacNo].append(meterNo)    else:       twacDict[twacNo] = [meterNo] del searchRow, searchRows twackList = twacDict.keys() twackList.sort() for twacNo in twackList:    meterList = twacDict[twacNo]    #make a graph here, since you now have a hook to the twacNo and it's list of meterNos ... View more

This table "in_memory\table_sel" you create will persist until you close the instance it was created in. And how do I do that? ... View more

I would find it more likely your log file is the issue. Try disabling logging and running it a few times to see if you get the same slow downs. Also, are you closing the instance of python this script is running in between executions? The in_memory workspace won't clear properly until you terminate the instance it was executed in or you clear it explicitly. I will see what I does when I remove the logging from the script. Forgive me, but the second part you are talking about... what do you mean ... View more

# Name: Electric Meter Demand Graphs - Usage.py # Description: Python script to take a single TWACs Meter and create a Usage Graphs per Feeder # Date Created: Tuesday, September 17th, 2013 @ 1:20 PM # Date Modified: Tuesday, September 17th, 2013 @ 1:20 PM # Author: C. Wafstet #94 - Modern Electric Water Company (Spokane, WA) import arcpy import arcpy import logging from arcpy import env env.overwriteOutput = 1 env.workspace = r"C:\MEWCo GIS System\Electric System\MEWCo_Electric_Model-LOCAL.gdb" table = "SERVICE_METERS_DEMAND_F1FEEDER_ABC" list = [] # if run in ArcGIS Desktop, show messages, also print to log def log(method, msg):     print msg     method(msg) logging.basicConfig(         level=logging.INFO,         format='%(asctime)s %(levelname)-s %(message)s',         datefmt='%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S',         filename='MakeGraph.log',         filemode='w'         ) log(logging.info, "Creation of Graphs Started") rows = arcpy.SearchCursor(table) for row in rows:     list.append(row.TWACs_NUMBER) del row, rows # Remove duplicates from list list = dict.fromkeys(list) list = list.keys() for n in list:     arcpy.TableSelect_analysis(table, r"in_memory\table_sel", "TWACs_NUMBER = " + str(n))     # Get TWACs_Number value     for row in arcpy.SearchCursor(r"in_memory\table_sel"):         METER_NUMBER = row.getValue("METER_NUMBER")     out_graph_name = n     out_graph_pdf = r"C:\MEWCo GIS System\Electric Graphs\Electric Meters\Usage Graphs\F-1 Feeder" + "\\" + str(n)[:-2] + "-Usage" + ".pdf"     input_template = r"C:\MEWCo GIS System\Electric Graphs\GIS Graph Temps\ELECTRIC METER DEMAND - KWH USAGE.grf"     input_data = r"in_memory\table_sel" # Create the Graph     graph = arcpy.Graph() # Add a Vertical Bar series to the graph - KWH Usage     graph.addSeriesBarVertical(input_data, "KWH_USAGE") # Specify the title of the Left Axis     graph.graphAxis[0].title = "KWH_USAGE" # Specify the title of the Bottom Axis     graph.graphAxis[2].title = "BILLING_PERIOD" # Specify the title of the Graph     graph.graphPropsGeneral.title = "KWH Usage by Electric TWACs Number: " + METER_NUMBER # Output a graph, which is created in-memory     arcpy.MakeGraph_management(input_template, graph, out_graph_name) # Save the graph as an .PDF     arcpy.SaveGraph_management(out_graph_name, out_graph_pdf, "MAINTAIN_ASPECT_RATIO", 600, 375) log(logging.info, "Creation of Graphs Complete")     The code works just fine.... I worked on it for awhile to make it work the way I want it too. It just seems like - each time I run it - it takes longer and longer. ... View more

Jake- Yes - huge help on one of my previous posts to get the Python script to create the graph. Nice to know that there is a bug in the tool/script. I have been trying multiple different things for the past few days to get it to work. I will send a note to Tech Support and see what can be done. Thank you for the help. Chris Chris, I believe I was assisting your before.  I think the title of the axis's being lowercase is a bug.  I was able to reproduce this same behavior.  I would recommend following up with Tech Support. As for the title, you can use the 'getValue' method to retrieve the value of your field.  Ex: import arcpy from arcpy import env env.overwriteOutput = 1 env.workspace = r"C:\temp\data.gdb" table = "Meters" fields = ["METER_NUMBER"] list = [] rows = arcpy.SearchCursor(table) for row in rows:     list.append(row.METER_NUMBER) del row, rows #remove duplicates from list list = dict.fromkeys(list) list = list.keys() for n in list:     arcpy.TableSelect_analysis(table, r"in_memory\table_sel", "METER_NUMBER = " + str(n))         #get TWACs_Number value     for row in arcpy.SearchCursor(r"in_memory\table_sel"):         TWACs_Number = row.getValue("TWACs_Number")        out_graph_name = n     out_graph_pdf = r"C:\Temp" + "\\" + str(n) + ".pdf"     input_template = r"C:\Temp\KW Demand.grf"     input_data = r"in_memory\table_sel"     # Create the graph     graph = arcpy.Graph()     # Add a vertical bar series to the graph     graph.addSeriesBarVertical(input_data, "KW_DEMAND")     # Specify the title of the left axis     graph.graphAxis[0].title = "KW Demand"     # Specify the title of the bottom axis     graph.graphAxis[2].title = "Meter Number"     # Specify the title of the Graph     graph.graphPropsGeneral.title = TWACs_Number     # Output a graph, which is created in-memory     arcpy.MakeGraph_management(input_template, graph, out_graph_name)     # Save the graph as a PDF     arcpy.SaveGraph_management(out_graph_name, out_graph_pdf, "MAINTAIN_ASPECT_RATIO", 600, 375) ... View more

Sorry meant to add that bit in. Where you specify the name of the PDF and use str(n) use str(n)[:-2] Cheers Dave BINGO!!!! That is exactly what I am looking for. The .PDFs are coming out exactly the way they need and are named properly. Thank you I am doing more research on the graph itself. ... View more

Dave- Thank you, but how should that look here??: for n in list:     arcpy.TableSelect_analysis(table, r"in_memory\table_sel", "TWACs_NUMBER = " + str(n))     out_graph_name = n     out_graph_pdf = r"C:\MEWCo GIS System\Electric Graphs\Electric Meters\F-1 Feeder" + "\\" + str(n) + ".pdf"     input_template = r"C:\MEWCo GIS System\Electric Graphs\GIS Graph Temps\ELECTRIC METER DEMAND - KWH USAGE.grf"     input_data = r"in_memory\table_sel" ... View more

At this time - I have installed ArcGIS 10.2 and the script is working perfectly. Except (1) thing that I cannot figure out. The field that is being used to name the .PDF is TWACs_NUMBER, which is a "Double" field type. I am having a hard time getting the naming of the .PDF to come out properly. Example: TWACs_Number - 14710787 The way the .PDF is being created: 14710787.0.pdf This is going to make it difficult running the attachment tool because of the .0 at the end since in the table there is no .0 This is what the stand-alone Python script looks like: import arcpy import arcpy from arcpy import env env.overwriteOutput = 1 env.workspace = r"C:\MEWCo GIS System\Electric System\MEWCo_Electric_Model-LOCAL.gdb" table = "SERVICE_METERS_DEMAND_F1FEEDER" list = [] rows = arcpy.SearchCursor(table) for row in rows:     list.append(row.TWACs_NUMBER) del row, rows # Remove duplicates from list list = dict.fromkeys(list) list = list.keys() for n in list:     arcpy.TableSelect_analysis(table, r"in_memory\table_sel", "TWACs_NUMBER = " + str(n))     out_graph_name = n     out_graph_pdf = r"C:\MEWCo GIS System\Electric Graphs\Electric Meters\F-1 Feeder" + "\\" + str(n) + ".pdf"     input_template = r"C:\MEWCo GIS System\Electric Graphs\GIS Graph Temps\ELECTRIC METER DEMAND - KWH USAGE.grf"     input_data = r"in_memory\table_sel" # Create the Graph     graph = arcpy.Graph() # Add a Vertical Bar series to the graph - KWH Usage     graph.addSeriesBarVertical(input_data, "KWH_USAGE") # Specify the title of the Left Axis     graph.graphAxis[0].title = "KWH_USAGE" # Specify the title of the Bottom Axis     graph.graphAxis[2].title = "BILLING_PERIOD" # Specify the title of the Graph     graph.graphPropsGeneral.title = "KWH Usage by Electric TWACs Number" # Output a graph, which is created in-memory     arcpy.MakeGraph_management(input_template, graph, out_graph_name) # Save the graph as an .PDF     arcpy.SaveGraph_management(out_graph_name, out_graph_pdf, "MAINTAIN_ASPECT_RATIO", 600, 375) Also - why is it when the .PDF is greated - the graph title and lables are ALL lower case letters? Thank you ... View more