Latest Contributions by RobertStevens

Hello Dan I have anticipated the solution in your helpful answer and have acquired (2 days ago) a 16GB macbook pro with all flash persistent storage. However, I am not so sure about the processor speed. I have not yet installed any windows partition either with Bootcamp or Parallels. Do you have any metrics and whether ArcGIS is i/o or cpu bound? I am guessing the former which is what I mainly addressed acquiring  a new laptop. I am slightly worried about the CP speed Also it is probably better to run arcgis using Bootcamp (either with or without Parallels). Does anyone have any solid data about ArgMap run in a VM as opposed to a native OS? Ty Rob Stevens PS: as, and when I have solid performance data myself comparing old and new configurations, I will add it to this thread. ... View more

Rob, Are you working with the BA10.0 2010/2015 (census 2000-based) version? Jason R. Jason Yes, I believe so. It is the 2011 data which, I believe, predates the 2010 census because that latter had not yet been published. I have had this problem once before with a different layer. It is very strange and very non reproducible. But once it happens the map continues to display incorrectly until ArcMap is stopped and restarted. I am not even sure that always works, but it did in the instance I cite in my original posting. Rob ... View more

You have doubtless identified that as a customer I am not very happy with ESRI. BA is not a cheap product. We find that the datasets, while doubtless containing much useful information, do not meet our needs. Nonetheless some of the supplied tools seem useful and we are keeping an open mind about continuing to use BA. But.. when we discover that ESRI refuse to maintain interface compatibility between BA10.0 and ArcGIS Desktop 10.1 we become incensed. So we cannot upgrade to ArcGIS 10.1, use the improvements and bug fixes therein, without shelling out another 12K for BA -- a product which we have already purchased. This is a continuing pattern with ESRI. The software is already expensive but when purchased one finds that there is something missing, something which casual evaluation would think ought to be included in an expensive product, and which is only available if one shells out several thousand more dollars. I believe that not maintaining interoperability between two products with, respectively, version numbers 10.0 and 10.1,  goes against generally accepted good software standrads, and indeed amounts to sharp practice. I may say also that these products seem to be chock full of bugs and that their performance leaves much to be desired. Rob Stevens NSW Corp. ... View more

The tool did not immediately work for me. I get: Traceback (most recent call last):   File "C:\Users\rob\Documents\ArcGIS\RobToolBoxes\Scripts\tabletoexcel.py", line 85, in <module>     export_to_xls(dataset_name, output_file)   File "C:\Users\rob\Documents\ArcGIS\RobToolBoxes\Scripts\tabletoexcel.py", line 58, in export_to_xls     worksheet = workbook.add_sheet(os.path.split(dataset)[1])   File "C:\Python26\ArcGIS10.0\lib\site-packages\xlwt\Workbook.py", line 345, in add_sheet     raise Exception("invalid worksheet name %r" % sheetname) Exception: invalid worksheet name u'ACS_TransportGreaterPortland_byCBG' Completed script TableToExcel... Failed to execute (TableToExcel). Failed at Wed May 29 12:02:05 2013 (Elapsed Time: 9.00 seconds) ... View more

I am replying to my own thread! It turns out that ArcMap wasn't hung -- it just took a long time to process. The BDS and SDC datasets that are available with Business Analyst are compressed (and encrypted). In addition the demographic layers contain many, many fields (maybe more than a typical SQL table will allow). So working with them can be slow. Following advice from support services (thx Jason) one should do one or more of the following a) Change the field visibility of the layer to include only those fields     that one is certain to be interested in. Then export the layer (data=>export)     into a feature class b) Use a spatial join just once to select only those records pertinent to the map     extent with which one is working (this may be slow, but has to be done just once)     This might especially be te case if you have USA wide data (as opposed to     just a state or two) c) Use the tools that come with Business Analyst if appropriate -- they are     optimised to work with BDS and SDC datasets and can do so more effciently     than general tools from the toolbox d) Append field(s) to the BDS layers using Business Analyst tools. A new BDS     layer will be created If I have said anything incorrect here perhaps someone from ESRI could correct me but this was my understanding from talking with Jason earlier today. Rob Stevens ... View more

Jason You ask what changes I am trying to make. 1. How the input fields are named (mine are named e.g. "Work Address") 2. Don't need X,Y coordinates output (What use are these anyway?     .. and there is a bug if you identify the address by pointing at the map) 3. Unable to add place name aliases You get the drift. These changes are not major, but they are convenient. ... View more