Latest Contributions by RobertStevens

‎07-06-2015

I have a number of file geodatabases containing feature classes using a specific geographic projection. I wish to convert them all to feature classes in a replacement file geodatabase having a different geographic projection (for reasons of efficiency). How can I do this? None of the tools in the standard ArGIS-10.3.1 toolbox (Data Management Tools => Projections and Transformations) don't seem to support it: Batch Project only shows files of type "Geographic datasets" and doesn't even display the name of the file geodatabase Project is for a single dataset only I have looked at ArcCatalog => Export => To geodatabase (multiple) but it isn't quite clear to me how to convert the projection. One can modify the Environments => Output Coordinates and change the output cooordinate system from "Same as Input" to "As Specified Below" but it asks for the geographic transformation without providing any guidance about which one(s) should be used. Batch Project, mentioned above seems to know which transformation to use since it doesn't ask the user for that information.

‎06-26-2015

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.

‎06-26-2015

ArcGIS desktop has now become a total behemoth. I am growing old just watching the spinning blue circle. I am running ArcGIS Desktop 10.3 on a dual core MacBook Pro with 8G RAM. I run Parallels to create a windoze virtual machine, which is allocated 4 of those 8 Gigs. ArcMap takes more than 3 of those windows Gigs, and apparently isn't satisfied with that. On startup, it takes several minutes (more than two) even to display the splash (ie, a new empty! map). I recently deleted a dataset from a layer (one that was not even used in drawing the layer), and grew old watching the spinning blue circle. More than a minute. Maps seem to redraw at the drop of a hat for no apparent reason leading to delays which can be 3 minutes or more. Even the python interface takes an eternity. Without even a map to draw a simple script using ArcPy classes takes upwards of a minute before it does anything. In short, the product has become nearly unusable. I'd like to frame this in the form of a question, but, really, what question can one ask?? That the product be engineered to be more efficient? Rob Stevens

‎05-05-2015

I recently upgraded ArcGIS Desktop from 10.2 to 10.3 and installed Business Analyst (BA) 10.3 (I think that is the release#: it has 2014 data) When I now try to geocode addresses I see several locators coming from BA locally installed, and a remote locator also, but I no longer see the World Geocod Service I used in 10.1. Why is that? I seem to remember that in order to access the world locator I had to edit, by hand, an XML file. I also seem not to get the screen which asks me which coordinate system I wish to use: that of the locator, or that of some other dataset or frame. Rob Stevens

‎04-22-2015

Can someone from ESRI answer this please. The BA demographic dataset has a large number of data fields. But none of the data seems to have any confidence levels specified (variance, standard deviation, ..whatever). Am I to assume that, for example, when I see that a certain census tract has 1113 people in the age range 20-24 that the data is precise? Yeah, right!! Another way of asking this question is: How many people were surveyed in order that these numbers can be estimated? How is the total population for a given geographic unit estimated? The American Community Survey 5 year datasets also provide certain demographic data down to the census tract level, but their data is always accompanied by uncertainty estimate equivalent to 90% confidence level. What methodology are Dunn & Bradstreet using? (The data does come from that source does it not?) Thanks Rob Stevens

‎03-30-2015

The names, and amazingly the numeric ids, of Business Analyst tapestry groups have changed between BA2011 (10.0) and BA2014 (10.3). Does anyone know where documentation can be found which describes these newly named tapestry segments? Or is my recourse to get the 2011 descriptions and apply my poetic cum literary skills to decide how they have been renamed?

‎08-07-2014

I am trying to use the network dataset that ships with business analyst (version 10.0 in StreetMapData/streets.sdc) to solve a routing problem outside the confines of the Business Analyst wizards. When I try and add this dataset to a map I do not get the result I would expect. In particular the Network Analyst window doesn't show anything and so I cannot enter the parameters needed for the problem in question. Why is that? Is it because Network Analyst does not understand .sdc files?

‎12-12-2013

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

‎12-12-2013

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.

‎12-11-2013

We are running ArcGIS10.0 and Business Analyst 10.0 all relevant service packs applied. We have an intermittent error with the display of some basemap layers which are drawn from the Business Analyst .sdc datasets. The latest example is as follows. The basemap layer named "North America" in the "Land" group, which should have displayed at magnifications of 300-150K, did not in fact display. This had the consequence that all areas of the display not otherwise covered by a layer higher in the drawing order took on the appearance of the background (or possibly the Water Background layer -- they both had the same color). It is not clear what provokes this behavior, but once it has happened the layer in question will never draw properly again unless ArcMap is stopped and restarted. In particular, displaying the map at a different resolution and then returning to 300-150K has no effect; nor does opening a different map and returning to the original. The problem is not with this one layer per se; we have had the same problem with other layers from time to time. The bug is not easy to reproduce. I know this seems like an unlikely scenario. But I worked this problem for several hours. I would like an ESRI person to address this issue and if necessary to open a bug filing. Rob Stevens, NSW Corp.

‎11-14-2013

Our company initially purchased Business Analyst 10.0 with the 2010 dataset and later, upgraded with the 2011 dataset. We were incredulous to find that when we upgraded to ArcGIS 10.1 (from 10.0) that BA no longer worked. ESRI's response to that was that we had to shell out another 10+K to buy BA 10.1 We find this an unacceptable way to do business amounting, in our view, to sharp practice. However ESRI have now gone a step further. When we now solicit a price for BA with 2013 data we are quoted $22K. Apparently we are required to buy the 2012 data in order that we can get the 2013 data. Our beloved CSR informs us that we are expected to buy BA every year in order to buy the latest dataset. Perhaps the simplest solution is for us to just rename our company and buy the blessed product as a new customer. Our response to that is simple. We will never again buy software from a company so lacking in ethics. We are actively trying to migrate to Open SOurce solutions and will ditch ArcGIS as well.

‎05-29-2013

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)

‎11-09-2011

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

‎11-08-2011

I have experienced this frequently. Using ArcView Desktop 10.0 + sp3 on MacBook 64 bit running bootcamp and using windows 7 Have an existing map.Use a toolkit to select a tool (it may matter which tool, I am not sure, but it definitely has occurred using different tools). Arcview frequently hangs in the tool wizard when entering a layer from the as one of the parameters (by using the drop down listbox). No recovery is possible. The only recourse is to kill ArcMap. Until today I never found a replicable test case. But I do now have one using the "spatial join" tool in the "overlay" toolbox. On the second input field I select a BDS layer (from Business Analyst) as the second parameter ("Join Features"). I then get the windows7 busy cursor (rotating ring of fire) and the application hangs indefinitely. Has anyone else had similar experiences?

‎09-06-2011

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.

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My Ideas

Latest Contributions by RobertStevens

Convert the projection used by multiple feature classes in a file geodatabase

Re: ArcGIS Desktop Performance

ArcGIS Desktop Performance

World Locator: not in list after update

Business Analyst Demographic Data: Confidence Levels

Business Analyst Tapestry Documentation

Use Business Analyst Network Dataset Standalone?

Re: Bug Display Basemap Layers

Re: ESRI support policy and cost for Business Analyst

Bug Display Basemap Layers

ESRI support policy and cost for Business Analyst

Re: ArcGIS 10 - export to Excel

Re: ArcView Desktop frequently hangs when selecting a layer in toolbox tools

ArcView Desktop frequently hangs when selecting a layer in toolbox tools

Re: Business Analyst Address Locators: cannot modify

Transform from NAD_1983_HARN to WGS_1984

Shape_Length and Shape_Area of Geographic Coordina...

Re: Conda. How can it be so slow?

Conda. How can it be so slow?

Activation of Conda Environments