Latest Contributions by RobertBorchert

Thanks, I knew it would be something simple. I am going to plug it in and give it a test. Robert, wouldn't you do this with the "Make Feature Layer" tool from the toolbox. There you can add a sql expression. Will do the same thing as a definition in the properties. Only the selected data is passed on to the next process. You can probably copy your selection text from the dialog you do manually in ArcMap. Cheers, Neil ... View more

I have ArcGIS 10.2 on my machine.  I just looked in the Start menu and it shows Python 2.7 is installed. It's not the most recent (python is up to 3.x, ArcGIS uses 2.6 or 2.7 depending on your version), but from the bits of gossip I've heard, 2.x will probably be around for a while. Other than installing to a non-standard location, and adding the arcpy site package, I don't think Esri makes any significant changes to the distribution. You used to be able to install python before ArcGIS and then the ArcGIS installer could use the existing python install (still had to be correct version). I haven't run an install in a few versions, so I'm not sure if that's true anymore. I think arcpy requires specific versions of certain modules too, like numpy, so it may not be 100% cut and dry anymore. But all and all Python has been pretty handy. It's kind of like the Swiss Army Knife of languages. ... View more

I was just on the Python web site before replying. I see I can download Python for free.  It may come in handy for things outside of the ESRI environment.  Is ESRI Python use compatible with the most recent release of Python. www.python.org as well as any book published by O'Reilly (check online) These don't relate to ArcGIS but will get you up to speed.  Also don't forget the code samples in the help files http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.2/index.html ... View more

Thanks, these are both great suggestions.  I am going to run the free course and see if my Supervisor will get the book ordered for me. ... View more

I would say it may be your technique and settings. In the line of the previous response.  click the Editor Drop down menu.  Under general turn on Classic Snapping and apply.  now open the snapping window and make sure everything is unselected. Now the drawback is you will not able to snap to vertices of other polygons.  So if you turn on what you want to snap to you can prevent snapping by holding down the space bar.  that disables all snaps. Are you trying to digitize INTO a existing Topology?  If so your Topology setting could be flattening out those lines based how your Topology was built.  I do not utilize topology in our field so I do not know for sure on that. Thanks for your reply.  However, I am still encumbered with this problem.  I have removed and rebuilt my editor toolbar with just the basic tools, disabled snapping, tried the same digitizing operation with another terminal in the office  ( other terminal works ). To reiterate, If I were to digitize a polygon feature with a portion of the polygon "------^-^-^-------" ; after finishing the part the return would be "----------------".   Simularly, if I were to digitize a multipart polygon with a narrow open space between edges, such as " ============"  my return might be  " =====        ======"  as ArcMap decides the open space between the polygon edges is insignificant and joins the two part feature into one.  I would appriciate any help in correcting this matter as I am about to start digitizing more of these type of features. Thank you Paul ... View more

My apologies but it is difficult to understand exactly what you want to do. From an ArcGIS Session open the attribute table. From the drop down menu select export and export it as a text file. open the text file in Excel and convert it to XML Hi, I need some help, the information on this site is too confusing, nobody explains EXACTLY what you need to do.. so here is my question: I need a tool or edit de 'Export Data' tool, cause I need to get the atributes table, not the datagrid info. How can I do that? Please step by step. Thanks Renata ... View more

I am not 100% on this but a raster can be broken down into a point feature and the entire cell is a single value.  The area of the cell is bespoken by the resolution of the raster.  Hence if the resolution is 2 foot the center of the cell (the x,y) would be 1 foot from each side at a 90 angle.  Pythagorean Theorem would then be used to determine the min/max of the x,y  of the cell. Hi, I'm trying to calculate the area of multiple rasters on a cell by cell basis, that is from decimal degrees to square meters. I've put together an equation that calculates that (see attachment) but as I'm very new to python I'm having difficulties trying to get the X Min, X Max, Y Min, Y Max values for each cell into the equation. Any tips and trick that I can use to accomplish the task would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Toni ... View more

As a side note I was pretty good writing code in mapbasic in my MapInfo days. I am going to start looking at learning Python.  Just seems to me to many times when it is handy. Which would you rather learn, Python, C#, or C++?  Your only batch options are ArcPy, ArcObjects, and FGDB API (the latter two would require hundreds to thousands of lines of code, while Python would only require dozens). It would only take a few hours to learn enough ArcPy to start this. Don't bother with even looking at PGDB (size and compatibility).  I would strongly discourage exceeding 20Gb in a a single FGDB table (too many eggs in one basket).  It you're targeting ArcSDE, then don't bother merging FGDBs; do try to load either across or up/down tiles, to reduce spatial fragmentation. I started writing a standalone tool to transfer FGDB tables to ArcSDE but Microsoft  library compatibility issues (static v. dynamic) made for more work than I was willing  to take on.  My fallback plan was to export FGDB to ASCII, which then could be quickly bulk-loaded into ArcSDE with 'asc2sde', but I haven't have time to  mess with that either. - V ... View more

I went with the low budget you just need a computer with grit method. I dos prompt unziped all 2573 filegeodatabases.  They are large because of the DEM's they contained.  I then created a new .gdb I simply selected all the .gdb's in ArcCatalog.  right clicked and did an export multiple to geodatabase.  This only exported the points, lines and polygons.  The resulting .gdb was surprisingly small. I did a test on 100 .gdb and it was only 70mb before I deleted out the other features I didn't need anymore.  I am doing it 500 at a time. No code, no dozens of hours trying to write something fancy.  Just simple creative use of the existing out of the box tools. Which would you rather learn, Python, C#, or C++?  Your only batch options are ArcPy, ArcObjects, and FGDB API (the latter two would require hundreds to thousands of lines of code, while Python would only require dozens). It would only take a few hours to learn enough ArcPy to start this. Don't bother with even looking at PGDB (size and compatibility).  I would strongly discourage exceeding 20Gb in a a single FGDB table (too many eggs in one basket).  It you're targeting ArcSDE, then don't bother merging FGDBs; do try to load either across or up/down tiles, to reduce spatial fragmentation. I started writing a standalone tool to transfer FGDB tables to ArcSDE but Microsoft  library compatibility issues (static v. dynamic) made for more work than I was willing  to take on.  My fallback plan was to export FGDB to ASCII, which then could be quickly bulk-loaded into ArcSDE with 'asc2sde', but I haven't have time to  mess with that either. - V ... View more

Thanks for the Heinlein quote. The tiles each have their own unique name.  Each filegeodatabase has a common model structure. Unfortunately I am not Python savvy. I would like to load them into either file or personal db which may eventually end up in SDE My recourse in the past for combining multiple sources into one has been the simple copy/paste. What are you combining these file geodatabases into?  Another FGDB?  How large are you expecting the resulting table (in rows and Gb)?  Are you expecting to join the features at tile boundaries?  Is there a naming system which will allow you to know the tile location without polling the features? Python can of course be used to append feature classes, but with the volume involved, you'll probably need a mechanism that will permit interruption and resumption of the load cascade process. Looks like a TANSTAAFL situation to me. - V ... View more

Are you starting originally in Access?  If so is there a good reason why you don't just create a new address locator and simply add the access table directly to your ArcGIS Session.  Once you have it set up you can simply right click on the table in ArcGIS and directly geocode from there. My company is currently using ArcGIS Basic 10.0 and Office 2003. We are currently testing 10.1 and Office 2010 with the intention of upgrading, and are trying to deal with some of the changes that are in the newer version of office. We use Access and Excel everyday and frequently save Excel spreadsheets into dbf format to pull into ArcGIS. We specifically have a geocoding model that relies on a dbf to start, and our normal process has us formatting our addresses into excel first, then saving as a dbf. We have a lengthy work around, but recently heard about the SaveDBF Excel 2007-2010 add-in, which would allow us to save an excel spreadsheet as a dbf. This was developed by a third party. I was wondering if any GIS users had heard about or used this add-in? We want to make sure that this is safe, and doesn't have any negative impact to any of our ArcGIS applications. Thank you, Jessica ... View more