What is quickest way to select polygon by point in ArcGIS 10 using ArcPy?

Question

I keep thinking that I must be missing something, but there does not seem to be a tool in ArcGIS 10 to select features (in particular polygons) from a layer at a point (X,Y) location via ArcPy. The parameters for such a tool would just be a layer name and an XY location.

At the moment I workaround this by creating a point featureclass containing the point and performing a SelectLayerByLocation on it. However, when the polygon feature class is in Oracle (accessed via ArcSDE 9.x) and contains 3.5 million polygons the time taken to make the selection can be more than 5 mins when I think a second or two (with less code) would be more appropriate. The feature class has a spatial index and I've tried using arcpy.env.extent (which SelectLayerByLocation appears to ignore) to restrict the geographic area accessed but the performance remains very poor.

Is there a quicker way to do this using ArcGIS Desktop 10 and ArcPy?

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Answer came from http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/35323-ArcPy-amp-SelectLayerByLocation-Performance?p=119047#post119047

Thanks Jason Scheirer for some more concise code: SelectLayerByLocation(in_layer=arcpy.PointGeometry(arcpy.Point(x, y)), select_features="mylayer")

And especially to Chris Snyder for a performance tip: "A speedier work around might be to buffer your point a bit and then use the buffer extent as the analysis extent to make an in_memory copy (CopyFeatures tool) of your SDE data, and then do a SelectByLocation on the smaller and local in_memory dataset. That way you are sort of making the SelectByLocation tool honor the analysis extent environment, which it would not normally do. BTW: Any features that overlap with the analysis extent will be copied with the CopyFeatures tool.

I sure wish the SelectByLocation tool and the cursors methods honored the analysis extent... "

My own ideas were starting to go to trying to use Make Query Table with Spatial SQL (e.g. ST_Overlaps or ST_Intersects) but was unsure of the syntax. If anyone can provide an answer along those lines, or if Chris Snyder is able to just put an answer that can be a copy/paste of mine (from his help) then I am keen to tick the answer box.

Answer 1

Another approach to this would be to use the Spatial Join tool. Use the point as your input feature layer as above and the polygon layer as your identity features.
Unlike SelectLayerByLocation, SpatialJoin does honor the extent environment.

targetlayer = layername
joinlayer=arcpy.PointGeometry(arcpy.Point(x, y))
fieldmappings = arcpy.FieldMappings()
fieldmappings.addTable(targetlayer)
arcpy.SpatialJoin_analysis(targetlayer, joinlayer, outputlayer, "JOIN_ONE_TO_MANY", "KEEP_COMMON", fieldmappings)

JOIN_ONE_TO_MANY might seem counter-intuitive, but since you only have one join feature, the main function of this option is to turn off aggregationand merge rules. KEEP_COMMON will make sure that your output is restricted only to the polygon that intersects your point. The Fieldmappings will restrict the output attributes to the shape and attributes of the polygon layer only; the default would include the point layer's attributes too.

The rest of the defaults will work fine, so you can leave off the remaining arguments.

Answer 2

What's wrong with the select by location approach PolyGeo? I'm not 100% sure I understand exactly what you're trying to do, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

My understanding of your question -- You want ONLY certain features (shared attribution) from a polygon shapefile that intersect specific points. Is this correct?

I would query out the relevant attribution from the broader shapefile with a select by attributes query. Export the data as a distinct shapefile and add it to the map, then I would do an intersect with your points using a select by location query. Any data that I would be generating ONLY as part of the workflow, I would house in a temp folder & then delete it after I have my value added data.

If you want to automate the process, won't Model Builder do something this simple (haven't dabbled too much on the Model Builder)? I suspect that you're more advanced than myself, but isn't this a feasible approach? If the processing will take a long time, just work on another project while you wait.

Not sure I've been much help, but I noticed that nobody else had answered.

Answer 3

I just realized something...

If you are using this to implement a Geoprocessing Service, you could also implement a Feature Service with your polygon layer instead and use the Query operation on the feature service.

You can use a simple XY location with Feature Service Query operation, as well as control the output attributes including shape.

You might have restrictions on how much you can expose the polygon feature class, but if you are already making it accessible to the geoprocessing service, then you should be able to build a Feature Service as well.