Latest Contributions by MarcoBoeringa

Due to a serious issue related to changed File Geodatabase locking behavior in ArcGIS Pro 2.5, causing an important tool from my to fail due to unrleased locks (ArcMap and Pro 2.4.x were fine with the same code), I already reverted back to to Pro 2.4.3 by uninstalling 2.5 and re-installing 2.4.3. One thing that does seem to be handled better by Pro than ArcMap, is that Pro 2.4.3 seems capable of opening 2.5 documents, although it will drop incompatible stuff related to the newer version. If you haven't used anything special related to Pro 2.5, you should be fine though. ESRI already releases x.x.x bugfix versions, last version of 2.4 was 2.4.3 after all. They just don't yet release "service packs" with much larger sets of bugfixes as they used to. It is then an x.x "major.minor" version instead with new functionality. ... View more

Note that Pro 2.6 will be the last version to support SQL Server 2014 according to the current deprecation plans (although deprecation plans sometimes prove fluid and change with time): FAQ: What are the deprecation plans for ArcGIS products?  Deprecation plans final version year 2019 ... View more

Makes one wonder what use case resulted in only the current version being available..... Honestly, I have no idea... ESRI always made a great effort to keep at least the Help systems of previous versions of their Desktop software available, you can still access the 9.2 Help... , even though ESRI retired 9.x long ago: ArcGIS Desktop Help 9.2 - welcome  ... View more

I second Asrujit SenGupta‌'s reply. Ultimately, if this is a vital system, doing a test run of the upgrade on a secondary instance, is the only really safe way to upgrade. Nonetheless, if none of your customizations has involved the Geodatabase System tables, which I actually also think quite unlikely, as any such modifications would be a pain to maintain for the developers of that customization as well, then you may actually be safe with upgrading. The thing is, in order to support new Geodatabase functionality, ESRI has had the need to modify the table structure of the geodatabase system tables in multiple major releases over the years / decades. These could be minor but also major re-structuring with replacement of entire tables / fields. In order to safely - and automatically - upgrade the geodatabase system tables' schema in such instances, I fully understand it is paramount for ESRI to know the existing table structure and contents. This is why having custom triggers, indexes or other modifications to the geodatabase system tables may become problematic once you attempt to upgrade. ... View more

You do not specify, except a brief mentioning of "user tables, non-sde", what it actually is that constitutes your "highly customized environment"... You could have a "highly customized environment" which still behaves entirely, and acts within, the geodatabase concept, but only a review of the applications / extensions involved and contacting the parties who developed it, should tell you this. I don't think having some "user tables, non-sde" is necessarily a problem if that is the only true "customization" you have done. If I quote your quote of the docs, it says: Have all custom functionality added to the geodatabase system tables outside ArcGIS, such as triggers or additional indexes been removed? which specifically references the actual geodatabase system tables, not user tables or non-sde stuff inside the same database. So, the first question for you to answer to yourself is, do you have custom "triggers or additional indexes" set on the geodatabase "system" tables to implement some of that "highly customized environment"? If not, you are likely safe upgrading the geodatabase. That said, I would certainly take George Thompson‌ 's advice and ensure you have a full - and restore tested(!) - backup of your geodatabase before doing any upgrading of the geodatabase environment. You will be even worse off if anything fails and you don't have a working backup to quickly restore your environment. ... View more

That is actually a slightly different option and new in Pro. It creates separate label classes automatically based on symbol classes. This, however, is not the same option as Jamal NUMAN‌ pointed out. In ArcMap, the  “Define classes of features and label each class differently” is just a generic option to create multiple label classes with e.g. distinct SQL Queries to select certain features to label, it isn't tied to the symbol classes perse (although you could manually set it up to replicate the symbol classes). To access the same functionality in ArcGIS Pro, open the Label Class pane from the ribbon, and access the menu option to create/rename or delete label classes, see screenshot. ... View more

In ArcGIS Pro 2.4 and above, you have access to the entire CIM (Cartographic Information Model) through Python and ArcPy, that is the foundation for projects and layer objects and styling as saved in an ArcGIS Pro project file (*.aprx) or layer file (*.lyrx): Python CIM access—ArcPy | Documentation  This is a really powerful new way to deal with layers and such. Do take heed of the warnings though, with power, responsibility comes as well, you can easily ruin your project if making modifications! I agree the Describe object can be confusing. I personally see ArcPy also a lot in terms of geoprocessing automation, running and calling tools, not necessarily styling modifications, although it can be done. I think the link Joshua Bixby‌ gave is the best description of some of the issues with Describe. ... View more

Ken Buja schreef: It doesn't look like it. The current status is "Not in Current Product Plan" I am flabbergasted. This is totally incomprehensible. This is core functionality that should not fail and that needs fixing a.s.a.p. if there is a bug affecting it. Kory Kramer‌, could you help raise the priority of this issue? ... View more

Luba Hristova‌, do you know what is the status of this bug, how is it classified in the ESRI bug tracking system? I ran into something similar back in the days in Pro 1.0. This is really a *major* issue that needs fixing a.s.a.p. Things like this are a real PITA when using Pro, and should have top priority fixing. This is core functionality that should not fail. ... View more

If I look at the ArcGIS for Desktop Help and the ArcGIS Pro Help for the 'Buffer' and 'Multiple Ring Buffer' tools, both apps' Help only mention the GEODESIC method for the 'Buffer' tool, not the 'Multiple Ring Buffer' tool, suggesting you cannot create GEODESIC buffers using the 'Multiple Ring Buffer' tool: Buffer—Help | Documentation  Multiple Ring Buffer—Help | Documentation  Buffer—Help | ArcGIS Desktop  Multiple Ring Buffer—Help | ArcGIS Desktop  Are you absolutely sure you were able to create GEODESIC buffers using the 'Multiple Ring Buffer' tool in ArcMap, and you aren't confusing other results with the current ones? ... View more

A bit of a side step, but there is also the concept of a "materialized view", which are views that reside on disk like a normal table, and that can be indexed as an ordinary table (at least in PostgreSQL which I am using, but I guess this is no different in SQL Server). So it would not be entirely surprising for the tool to attempt re-indexing a (materialized) view. ... View more

By the way, ESRI does in fact try to take advantage of multi-threaded processing for the UI as well. If you open the ArcGIS Pro Diagnostic Monitor with Ctrl+Alt+M, you see these small indicators in the lower right corner of the interface, that signify activity on foreground or background threads. The fact that despite this, ArcGIS Pro's user interface still regularly shows deplorable performance for tasks, is a clear indication ESRI could and should try to optimize the underlying code. I am really waiting now for ArcGIS Pro 2.5 being released, as Kory Kramer‌ indicated that it should have at least one major optimization regarding geoprocessing tasks holding up the user interface due to interface refreshes taking an exceptionally long time once a tool is finished. A fact that I also pointed out in another thread myself: ArcGIS Pro: Stop queuing senseless "UI Tasks" (performance issue)  ... View more

As I also wrote for Sean Hlousek, your results regarding the desktop versus your laptop hardly seeing a difference in Pro's performance may not be an entire surprise... Unfortunately, the laws of physics and practicality dictate that increasing single thread performance, which is largely dependent on increased clock speeds, is increasingly difficult. Read this nice article to understand why: Why CPU Clock Speed Isn't Increasing - Make Tech Easier  Writing software to take advantage of multiple cores is certainly possible, but there are many tasks that simply must run in single thread, also related to the software's user interface. Those won't take advantage of increased core count. As you can see from these stats from the Passmark website, your Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 (Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-2687W v4 (30M Cache, 3.00 GHz) Product Specifications ) launched in 2016 has a single thread performance slightly less than the five years older desktop Core i7-2600 CPU from 2011, which itself is hardly beaten by a Core i7-7700HQ laptop processor as launched in 2017: Intel Core i7-2600 - Multi-thread stat:8180 / Single-thread:1922, launch year 2011 Intel Core i7-7700HQ - Multi-thread stat:8761 / Single-thread:1991, launch year 2017 Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 - Multi-thread stat:19863 / Single-thread:1894, launch year 2016 Your Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 processor with its many cores, does have quite attractive multi-core performance though ... More than double than my own laptop with Intel Core i7-7700HQ. Any geoprocessing tool using the Parallel Processing Factor geoprocessing environment setting, should run really nicely on your machine! Even more attractive seems the new AMD Ryzen ThreadRipper 3970X: AMD Ryzen ThreadRipper 3970X - Multi-thread stat:48439 / Single-thread:2935, launch year 2019 But even this monster 32-core 7nm processor only has about 1.5 times the single thread performance of a nine year old Core i7 CPU based on 32nm process die... ... View more

Not to counter your valid arguments, but the processor you use, does seem a peculiar choice for running Pro. Even though it is a relatively recent processor, launched in 2017 (Intel® Xeon® Bronze 3104 Processor (8.25M Cache, 1.70 GHz) Product Specifications ), it has a very poor single thread and also quite marginal multi-threaded performance according to Passmark statistics. Even my much older second generation Core i7-2600 of my home desktop, which launched in 2011 but still runs happily with Windows 10, has double the single thread performance. Funny actually, but my quite recent laptop with a Core i7-7700HQ only marginally beats the nine year old desktop processor...: Intel Xeon Bronze 3104 - Multi-core stat:5685 / Single-thread:972 Intel Core i7-2600 - Multi-core stat:8180 / Single-thread:1922 Intel Core i7-7700HQ - Multi-core stat:8761 / Single-thread:1991 Your processor, also according to the Intel website, seems designed for low-end servers doing light CPU work (but possibly high IO to disks), e.g. running some mail server job, it is definitely not a high-end workstation processor for crunching data. ... View more