Tagged Questions

Geoprocessing is a GIS operation used to manipulate GIS data.

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31
votes
9answers
2k views

Alternatives to using Arcpy

I seem to use ESRI's Arcpy site package for virtually all of my python geoprocessing. To ESRI's credit, these are an incredible suite of tools that can help accomplish a great deal. However, I would ...
23
votes
2answers
955 views

Streamlining Python Code for Big Data

I have Python code which is designed to take point shapefiles through the following workflow: Merge points Integrate points, such that any points within 1 m of each other become one point Create ...
20
votes
8answers
1k views

How to easily shift all features in a vector dataset?

Let's say that I put together a Shapefile and all the features have their vertices shifted by a constant amount. What's the easiest way of shifting all the features (hence the (x,y) position of their ...
19
votes
8answers
1k views

Is there an architecture for distributed geoprocessing?

Suppose I have 50 computers on my LAN. Each computer has a geodatabase for all parcel polygons in a particular state in the US. I'd like to write a geoprocessing task that finds all parcels valued ...
18
votes
10answers
2k views

What are the existing solutions to automate generalisation/simplification of geographical data?

I am looking for existing solutions (softwares, libraries, methods, etc.) to automate the generalisation/simplification of geographical data as presented there, and also there. How do you proceed ...
18
votes
4answers
2k views

Is there any model builder in QGIS or other open source GIS?

Like the model builder in ArcGIS Desktop to run simultaneous geoprocessing tools, is there any model builder available in QGIS or an open source GIS software.
18
votes
2answers
284 views

Ways of expressing geographic questions in machine readable form

A core concept of GIS is answering questions about datasets. From the point of view of a database; SQL with spatial extensions is a way of asking such questions. What other ways can questions be ...
17
votes
5answers
2k views

How to identify clusters in vector point data?

I have a vector dataset of rural broadband data-points (how fast, etc.) and I'd like to explore if there are clusters of points with similar characteristics, and to plot polygons encompassing them. ...
15
votes
4answers
478 views

How to handle TIME in GIS?

Is there any way or any idea on how to handle Time attribute in GIS? For example, which are the ways to specify that an object is at a place at a given time interval and them it is in another place ...
12
votes
5answers
4k views

How to get the extent of each polygon in a shapefile?

In arcgis 10 and python I want to get the extent (xmax, ymax, xmin, ymin) info of each of the polygons in a shape file. I can get the extent of the whole shape file using ...
12
votes
4answers
400 views

Mirror of Michigan State University's Python geoprocessing course materials

Been learning geoprocessing with Python using MSU's GEOG 825 ( python geoprocessing ) course. Unfortunately the link is dead now. I know this is a long shot but does anybody have a copy of the ...
11
votes
4answers
1k views

PostGIS: Select features that do NOT intersect

This seems to me like such a simple question (and it probably is) yet I cannot seem to find an example that gives me the answer. Using PostGIS, I just want to select points that fall outside of ...
11
votes
4answers
2k views

Simplifying adjacent polygons

I encountered a problem simplifying set of polygons that are adjacent. If I simplify each polygon separately with the Douglas–Peucker algorithm (which is used by many open source tools), the resulting ...
11
votes
2answers
1k views

Is there a way to automate the preprocessing of LANDSAT data?

I'm currently enrolled in a remotesensing course, using LANDSAT data. Part of my course is about standardizing the scenes based on radiance values. I assume that because this is such a tedious task, ...
11
votes
1answer
545 views

How do I identify and gracefully kill hung Gp service processes?

I've published a gp tool as an asynchronous non-pooled gp service. When the gp tool hangs I would like to allow the user to kill it, without impacting other services. If I put a webservice on the ...
11
votes
1answer
244 views

How do I create groups of points from lat/long pairs?

I have a database which contains Lat/Long pairs to identify the location of points of interest. I would like to group the points of interest into groups of 10. The group should be geographically ...
10
votes
2answers
1k views

Is there a Free Aggregate Points tool out there for ArcGIS 10?

I need to do some Getis-Ord analysis but first I need to aggregate my points. I know of XToolsPro, but the aggregate points function is locked and you must purchase a license to use it. I am ...
10
votes
2answers
1k views

Issues with geoprocessing with .NET

There are some nice features in ArcToolbox we can use, but for some reason, this is NOT working properly. It doesn't even throw me an error. My software is running inside ArcMap, so no need to ...
10
votes
4answers
2k views

Simplifying polygons to linestring

I would like to simplify some polygons that represent rivers into linestrings. I assume that holes in polygons can be omitted. Anybody has some good idea how to simply do it? It would be nice, if it ...
9
votes
2answers
211 views

Can I add an ArcToolbox tool to QGIS?

I have been using a publicly available tool in ArcGIS called SPreAD-GIS. It is a series of python scripts that are "implemented as an ArcGIS toolbox" (with tbx file). I am new to QGIS. Is there a ...
9
votes
2answers
203 views

Ocean flow models - predict the path of an object dropped in the ocean

This question is from a user who wants to calculate the predicted path of a bottle dropped from a ship. He has a spreadsheet of hundreds of these bottles and wishes to display the predicted vs actual ...
9
votes
3answers
2k views

Divide a complex shape file into a grid

I have a decently detailed shapefile with polygon/multipolygon features (the file is about 500mb). It's actually a shapefile of the entire world, with the features representing coastlines. I need to ...
9
votes
4answers
799 views

Programatically split a polygon with a line

In looking at this question, it occurred to me that I am not sure how one would go about using geoprocessing tools in ArcGIS to split a polygon with a line programatically. Manually, you would use ...
9
votes
2answers
2k views

How to import esri Personal Geodatabase (.mdb) to PostGIS on Linux

We have esri Personal Geodatabases that we need to import into PostGIS. Ultimately, we'd like to allow people to upload an MDB on a web server, and have it import the layers into PostGIS. On ...
9
votes
1answer
275 views

Can I collect Seismic data with an array of cell phones?

Suppose I have an array of cell phones, each having: an accelerometer a clock a GPS receiver Windows Phone 7 (WP7) How hard would it be to write a program so that synchronizes the phones to a ...
8
votes
5answers
577 views

Background reading on using GPUs for GIS?

I'm interested in the emerging intersection between GIS systems and GPUs, which can provide orders of magnitude improvement to certain classes of GIS problems. Do you know of any good resources ...
8
votes
6answers
408 views

PostGIS: Assign ID of point in layer A to closest point in Layer B

This should have been an obvious precursor (that I didn't ask) to my other question: PostGIS function to create spider diagrams? If I do not know the relationship between a point in layer A (stores) ...
8
votes
4answers
1k views

To what extent is SQL's language accessible via ArcGIS tools?

That question just sounds so redundant... At any rate, I have been asked to explore the uses of SQL in ArcGIS. We use an SDE DB for all server-side storage and DB managing/large-scale editing. ...
8
votes
1answer
217 views

How to find differences between shapefiles?

Every month I have to QA/QC some streets data for an entire county (over 47,000 records). The first step is to compare the two files. Currently, I'm using a tool that was created in house via VBA ...
8
votes
3answers
1k views

ArcGIS Python Tool - Importing Custom Script Into ToolValidator Class

I had posted a question last week about customizing a ToolValidator class and got some very good answers. In working with the proposed solutions, I have created a custom module that performs queries ...
8
votes
3answers
488 views

Address Standardizer Options

Ok, so with ArcGIS 10, ESRI has depricated 'Address Standardizing' in the new locators, I know you can still use the 9.3.1 locators to do this; but I heavily suspect that after the 10.1 version we ...
8
votes
3answers
292 views

Preferred programming language and software for entire remote sensing workflow?

I have been involved in remote sensing for some years now during studies. I am wondering which combination of software and image processing modules would be most suitable for an entire process chain ...
8
votes
2answers
901 views

Is there an automated/geoprocesing tool In ArcGIS to slice, clip, or cut polygons using polylines?

Looking for a simpler method here. I am trying to split up / cut / slice existing polygons by using existing poly-lines. An example would be splitting a water body or land parcel at the point where a ...
8
votes
0answers
355 views

Using a different Python IDE/debugger for ArcGIS [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: How can I effectively debug arcpy Python scripts? I prefer to use PyScripter over IDLE as my IDE/debugger for writing GP scripts in Python. In ArcGIS, however, when I ...
7
votes
4answers
2k views

How to develop GUI in Python for geoprocessing?

I want to develop GUI in Python for geoprocessing, but I don't know what is the best GUI tool or library (Tkinter, PyQT, wxPython) for geoprocessing? Can I use PyQT for GUI programming in ArcGIS?
7
votes
11answers
1k views

Logging GPS and Accelerometer Data - Device Suggestion?

I am looking for a device that can track my location (lat,long) and speed all day long. Perhaps, I need GPS and accelerometer data bundled together. What I want to do is to log my daily activities. I ...
7
votes
3answers
448 views

How can I make a county-level shape file from a set of points at 30 x30 km spacing?

I have a data set in csv form, like: latitude, longitude, value -45, 45, 10 .... I would like to calculate county level means from these data, using either ArcGIS or R+grass. I have the ArcGIS USA ...
7
votes
2answers
1k views

Log file for ArcGIS geoprocessing?

Whenever I run a geoprocess overnight, it seems my computer reboots. Does ArcGIS save some log file information? Where does it save it? For example, when I run a large dataset or image process I need ...
7
votes
1answer
880 views

How to find the mid-point of a line in arcpy

How can the mid-point of a polyline be calculated using the geoprocessing framework, eg in a Python script? The polyline.centroid property returns The true centroid if it is within or on the feature; ...
7
votes
5answers
748 views

How to integrate SAGA Python Modules into ArcGIS Desktop?

I have been having a look at SAGA (http://www.saga-gis.org/en/index.html) and it seems to have some nice tools for geoprocessing. I was wondering if anyone out there has had any luck bringing SAGA ...
7
votes
3answers
227 views

Why it is still not common to publish and use WPS?

I tried to find some online platform-independent GIS services that could be called by any programming language and doing various GIS operations - like intersection, data format conversion, ...
7
votes
2answers
2k views

Issues with large datasets

I am trying to run an Intersect process in arcgis 10 sp 3 with 2 file sets (aspect and slope) from up to a 1m DEM across an area of 65,000sq km. The aspect has 9,930,384 records and the slope has ...
7
votes
7answers
602 views

seeking “Available Sky” implementations

I'm looking for implementations of an algorithm called "Available Sky". ArcGIS (Spatial Analyst or GRID) is preferred, but solutions in GDAL, SAGA GIS or others are perfectly acceptable. The ...
7
votes
2answers
152 views

How to increase maximum memory usage cap for running Arc 10.1?

Not sure if this is strictly GIS related or perhaps belongs on StackOverflow...it is regarding ESRI ArcGIS 10.1, so I'm sticking it here. I'm looking for options to increase processing capacity, and ...
7
votes
3answers
301 views

How to sum up values of neighbouring polygons?

I hope that you can help me with the following problem: I have a vector (polygon) layer. I would like to add an attribute to the layer that - for every polygon - sums the values of a specific field of ...
7
votes
2answers
399 views

How to determine on which side of a line a polygon feature falls?

I have parcel data intersecting line data. In the parcel data there are some parcels that don't intersect the line. How could I programmatically figure out if the non-intersecting parcel is on the ...
7
votes
3answers
2k views

What ArcGIS 10 geoprocessing tools support exporting tabular data to CSV?

I have found that most if not all geoprocessing tools that allow tabular output are limited to geodatabase tables and DBF files for supported output formats. Are there any that also support CSV ...
7
votes
3answers
329 views

How do I figure out if there are clusters of one set of points around another set of points from a different layer?

I want to see if there is clustering of a certain type of buildings (x) around another type of buildings (y). The two point files are in different layers. I cannot figure out which tool I would use to ...
7
votes
4answers
3k views

Find Clustered Points Within X Distance with N Points

We're planning on doing some cluster analysis exposed as a geoprocessing service in ArcGIS 10 - specifically these two: Cluster and Outlier Hot Spot But we have to meet a specification for cluster ...
7
votes
1answer
77 views

Reduce processing time in Erase function using Arcpy in IDLE

I am processing 18,000 feature classes (saved in a file GDB), each with ~500 records (polygon features) in ocean areas, and I am running a script to remove area overlapping with the coast, using the ...

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