Latest Contributions by MichaelStead

I suggest just looking into post processing of any ouput filetypes you might be able to generate aside from gpx or nmea. I looked into it for gpx files long ago. Not enough information in gpx/nmea file relating to the individual satellites signals. Fairly certain this is hardware/firmware level difference though, so seems fairly unlikely. Hard to find mention of it on here anymore, but ESRI used to stand for Environmental Sciences Research Institute... A Trimble is a professional tool with one very specific purpose... An iPhone is a gadget that you already had in your pocket..... And it has a GPS on it. Unless you turned off the cell/network "processing", your gpx locations would be based on a weighted average of trangulated location and satellite data. Oh forgot.... You ever used point averaging? I remember thinking I was going to use that with a Garmin one time and live with crappier data. It would have taken a week to collect 20 locations to within a meter or two..... Skip..... This link is possibly older, but same reasons apply. poorgps ... View more

ESRI should look into supporting GeoPDF's as rasters for background mapping. Having said that...... have any of you converted vector data from pdf? There are no attributes aside from those relating to drawing styles. The script in this thread uses gdal_translate, but you can now also use OGR2OGR to extract the vector data. Either way... this is functionality I created for myself, but it is difficult to distribute as it needs other users to have GDAL installed and associated with the same version of Python as ArcGIS. Everytime I update... it all falls apart again. This doesn't create support for the format really, just the ability to convert into something that Arc does support from within ArcGIS. ... View more

In theory you might just try setting the joined data to show aliases and export your output with the same option. Third paragraph here: http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#//005s0000002p000000 I seem to remember this not working due to some bug....but maybe it got patched. I seem to remember something ... Maybe in that Advanced Settings GUI where there is a check box for this..... And they give it a fancy term that sadly I can't recall. Edit .....try searching "Qualified Field Names". Sure you could do this with python....but seems like needless pain to me. ... View more

I finally figured out as close as I can to a "solution" for this issue. I created a script that iterates througn mxds in a folder exporting event themes to point features and then run a repathing script from the event layer to the point layer. This seems to work, although if you go to the layers properties after updating the source, the Source tab in the layer properties is completely blank, but the source checks out using arcpy or in Catalog. As there is zero documetation for any of this, I would add that this is at your own risk, but does seem to work if you are not restricted to relinking to a new table source. ... View more

with a broken source event them I am able to change the data source of the "layer"...not the table... and this change shows up in ArcCatalog under the datasources table thing.... the layer remains unlinked though. I suspect something different with the way the dataSource parameter is being associated with event layers. Reasonably sure this can't be addressed with python and replacedatasource/workspace workflows... ... View more

Been struggling with this for a while with repathing in-map event layers, some with broken links, some from odc connections. I have observed some very interesting behaviour... but basically I think it comes down to that the dataSource value returned from an event them is not tied to the actual data source as it should be.... and even if it was it does not have parameters to redefine the coordinate fields. You should be able to create a standalone layer file on disk and do a loop though your mxds to add this. My problem with this is that I then need to remove the old layer and update all the legends...or leave the old layer in the maps, delete the old source table and live with the remnant unlinked data source in each project. You could do this all with python..or there is a "MXD and LYR Management Tools.tbx" somewhere on here that you could download for some scripttools that you could run in batch. As for your ObjectID thing... you should make a new field..calc your values over and base you new layer file on that..a meaningless field is better than that potential wreck. ... View more

I seem to remember fighting with field mapping for quite a while to get this to work, so I would just read some documentation on that or wait for someone who knows to respond, but I think you need to have a section in your code that sets up the field mappings. ... View more

Not sure I (or ArcGIS) understand why you are making a TIN and trying not to use <none> on a "mass points" triangulation.... the only thing it makes sense to include as a TIN input and not use for data values is some sort of mask or constraining feature. What are you trying to do? ... View more

The first thing that jumps out is that you need some spaces in between the items you area building the parameter strings with: This is currently be interpretted as "elevpntsroof.shpelevMass_Points <None>" and needs to be "elevpntsroof.shp elev Mass_Points <None>" try: ParamsRoof = Roofpnts + " elev Mass_Points <None>" and ParamsBldg = basepnts + " elev Mass_Points <None>" ... View more

I can't remember if it was the exact issue, but in a script I needed to build tins in I pre-built my parameters as a string into a variable like this: #create a TIN of the area para_in = InSounding + " " + S_Depth_name + " Mass_Points <None>;" + InShoreline + " " + DepthField + " Hard_Line <None>;" + OutShorelinePY + " <None> hardclip <None>" arcpy.CreateTin_3d (OutTIN, "#", para_in, "DELAUNAY") ...and it works. I often seem to need to do things like this..... ... View more

The clipping to the shape may not be necessary. In order to get the correct output for the volume of a lake below the surface I always clip the TIN to the polygonal extent of the lake and set my plane as slightly above 0... say 0.00001. If you set it at 0 you will find it doesn't include the surface in the volume calculation. If you leave the meaningless TIN faces that have been created between some of the outermost points this might not work, but you could set you plane at some slight negative value and estimate the ignored volume based on an area and a depth. Then add this volume (the top x units of depth multiplied by the surface area) to the volume calcullated by the tool. I usually do this all with the "Area and Volume" tool (add from Customize>Customize Mode>Commands>3D Analyst>Area and Volume...). It may be that the cut fill toolbox tool no longer has all these issues, but I suspect it still does. ... View more

Add it in ArcScene and play around with vertical exageration if you want to make things more obvious.... I never use 3d polygons, but I would expect them to be equivalent to a TIN... so I am not sure why you would even do that. Just import the x,y,z, to an event them in ArcGIS.... create a polygon around the points (like a fence tight to the outermost points....depending on what you are actually modelling... but you need a "zero" line or some sort of boundary). Use the 3d points and the polygon as inputs in Create Tin. Use the z values of the points as a mass points type, and use Null and hard clip on the polygon. There is likely more to it than that, but not sure what your data looks like. ... View more

Here's a Dan Patterson script that I learned how to do this from (thanks Dan). Look what he does starting on line 199. The % sign is used to do a substitution to get around the problem caused with required quotations for the query. I have read that Python has a new way to do the equivalent, but this works for me. ... View more

I am always making this stuff up as I go along, but if you are still trying to do this here is a script I built today that iterate through fields and creates a TIN for each and does some other stuff. I didn't want it to use the OBJECTID field or the northing and easting so it is seperated into 2 blocks....there is almost certainly a more elegant way to do that part.... basically you make a list of the fields and iterate through the list import arcpy, arcgis, os from arcpy import env from arcpy.sa import * InTable = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(0) InPoints = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(1) fieldList = arcpy.ListFields(InTable) for field in fieldList:         f_name = field.name         if not (f_name == "easting" or f_name == "northing" or f_name == "OBJECTID"):                 arcpy.MakeXYEventLayer_management(InTable, "easting", "northing", "temp", "", "")                 para_in = "temp" + " " + f_name + " masspoints"                 arcpy.AddMessage(para_in)                 arcpy.CreateTin_3d("NewTIN", "", para_in, "constrained_delaunay")                 arcpy.TinRaster_3d ("NewTIN", f_name, "FLOAT", "LINEAR", "CELLSIZE 20", "")                 ExtractMultiValuesToPoints(InPoints, [f_name], "BILINEAR")         else:                 arcpy.AddMessage(f_name) ... View more