Programatically use ArcMap?

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10-21-2016 07:39 AM
MatthewClark4
New Contributor II

Apologies if this is such a newbie question, but I'm not even sure where to start.  I've been using ArcMap on my Desktop and enjoy it, but I'm wondering if there's a programmatic way of doing the same thing?  I'd like to be able to feed what I want to do (example, create a viewshed at a given lat/long with altitude X ft, 10 mile radius, colored with rgb #ff0000 and transparency 50%).  I see tons and tons of API sets available via github, but I literally have no idea which one I should be using.  Any quick pointers would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks,

Matt

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5 Replies
DanEvans
Occasional Contributor II

You can write scripts in Python using the ArcPy library to do exactly the sort of thing you mention:

What is ArcPy?—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop 

There is also Model Builder if you prefer to do things graphically or don't feel confident writing Python code:

What is ModelBuilder?—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop 

MatthewClark4
New Contributor II

Hi, Dan,

Been a while since I've fiddled with Python, but nothing I can't pick back up.  But yet, I want to write some scripts that will take a set of inputs and can programatically generate a map of interest.  (It'll be even better if I can then take the result and do statistical analysis on it.)  I'll take a look at ArcPy.  Thank for the name reference too.

Matt

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JayantaPoddar
MVP Esteemed Contributor

Also Py... Blog by Dan_Patterson‌ is a good resource to work with Python for ArcGIS.



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MatthewClark4
New Contributor II

Thanks, Jayanta.  I'm not a Python expert, but I'm a quick learner.  I'll ping Dan Patterson once I get past the basics.

Matt

RebeccaStrauch__GISP
MVP Emeritus

When looking at Python, make sure to check out Introduction to arcpy.mapping—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop     Which can help with the mapping part.   There should be some tech session videos from ast dev summits and UCs that talk about using it.