Latest Contributions by RobertBorchert

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

Once you get your MXD open and maplex turned off start a new arcgis session. from the layout view copy all the elements. paste them into the layout view of the new map.  not in the new data frame. you will create new data frames. This is an old problem and I am surprised ESRI has not fixed it.  I have seen this same question a number of times for many months. A lot of my maps were using the maplex extension for labelling. We just upgraded to 10.1 and everytime I open a map that had maplex turned on the mxd crashes.  If I get to the pause button ontime I can switch the properties back to the standard label engine, but it's getting rather frustrating. Any fixes for this? ... View more

You will have to load it into a  geodatabase.  256 columns is max for csv excel etc to load into ArcGIS. your csv is a simple text file so it can be pretty large if you open it in word or wordpad etc... I am running ArcGIS Desktop SP 5 and I have a python script that creates a text file (.csv) with 995 columns.  My intention was to bring it into ArcGIS as a table and join it to the data it relates to.  However when viewing the csv as a table in ArcCatalog or ArcMap it only shows the first 256 columns.  I have read other threads in 9.3 forums referring to the same issue and that it relates to the Microsoft ODBC text driver and that this is the column limitation for text files. I know this has changed for 10.1 because the table will open fine on my home PC running a trial version of 10.1 "ArcGIS uses its own implementation for accessing delimited text file information and should handle the most common cases for displaying these files in ArcGIS." http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//005s00000010000000 However my work computer has to be on 10.0.  Is there any way around this besides splitting the csv file up into less than 256 columns per file?  Will this ArcGIS implementation for accessing delimited text files ever exist in 10.0? Thanks for your help ... View more

Did you change the resolution for your monitor or for your map to print.  Changing the export or print resolution should not do as you indicate. I was changing the resolution of a map to export (in the export map window) and downsized the bottom half of the window to view part of the map, but a similar arrow resize the window does not appear.  Now I am unable to rename a file or change the resolution for export. I created an entirely new .mxd and have the same problem.  I have version 10.0 desktop. Has anyone run into this problem? ... View more

You can try it with dimension lines.  I thought about it and made a dimension feature class.  I made customized symbol that looked like two arrows pointing inwards with an extension on the end.  Kind of cumbersome to set up took a lot of trial and error but once it is done and you figure it out you can quickly and easily draw they leaders you want. I'm in a situation where I need to create an annotation with a two part leader line. Basically what I have is a corridor with several different pipeline right-of-ways that need to be labeled and it's very difficult to distinguish which one is which using regular leader lines simply pointing to the center of each. Instead I what I need is a leader line going from the label to one side of the right-of-way then another smaller leader line on the other side of the right-of-way with arrows pointing to it. I've attached a jpg to show what I mean. Right now I'm drawing the single leader from the annotation and then adding a graphic arrow on the other side, but this is obviously clumsy and a bit time comsuming getting them to line up the way I want them. [ATTACH=CONFIG]26008[/ATTACH] Any ideas how this might be done quicker and a bit cleaner? ... View more

I have been wanting this for YEARS.  The best method I have found so far is to use the multiple layers. What I also want to see (and I have put it in the suggestion box multiple times) is to have a way to query the current scale and return it as a value.  Such that I can have a scale field in the feature class table and have individual features turn on or off and various scales.  i.e. I have feature  A and B.  I want feature a to be visible all scales and B only visible when zoomed in to 1:24,000 or less.  so the definition query would be something like.  scale <=  MapScale. Now I know there has to be a way to return current map scale.  after all it is constantly visible in an ArcMAP session. The multiple layer approach certainly gets the job done well enough. I was just hoping to simplify the map product for other end users. Maybe this will be an improvement in the future! Thanks for the reply rfairhur24. ... View more

I have not ever tried to work with 40 million records in shapefile or SDC files for that matter so I could not tell you how long it might take.  I have some very very very large databases but I have never tried to export more than 750,000 0 records and never to a shapefile on that scale Probably stay away from Python.  Your adding to many steps to your procedure.  There is probably no way the get around crunching it one state at a time.  However, like I mentioned close all other programs to give more power to your cpu.  if you have your files open in arcgis just use the simple symbols and remove all unnecessary features. I file or personal geodatabase is probably the way to go. What other formats can pgAdmin utilize?  Perhaps try exporting to one of those. bottom line is you have a huge dataset and it takes a machine with the hardware to handle that. ... View more

What program do you intend to use as a postGIS program to work with the date. A shapefile may or may  not be necessary. I believe it would go faster if you import to a personal or file geodatabase first. Also, when you are selecting and exporting pause the drawing. The length of time required is a direct relation to size of the data file and the power of your computer. close all programs on your computer and ONLY have the program you need running. I am not sure how to deal with sdc file. Can I export into file geodatabase? I think the bottleneck I have is about transforming the sdc file at the moment. ... View more

zoom to will zoom to the extents of all features selected.  pan to will pan to the geographical center of the features selected. IF you only have one feature selected pan and zoom will react the same for point features. Often in prior versions if you have only one feature selected and you hit zoom to and your feature was point it would actually center it and zoom out a little. ... View more

Are there any other options to this rather than a shapefile? i.e. what do you intend to use as a postGIS program? Can you import the SDC files into a personal geodatabase. ... View more