Python for ArcGIS Pro

Silas Toms, Bill Parker, Dr. Christopher Tucker, Rene Rubalcava

• Verlag: Packt Publishing
• Jahr: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781803246055
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Technology & Engineering
• Thema: Civil Engineering

Extend your ArcGIS expertise by unlocking the world of Python programming. A fully hands-on guide that takes you through exercise after exercise using real data and real problems. NOTE: This book is compatible with ArcGIS Pro 2.9.Key Features• Learn the core components of the two Python modules for ArcGIS: ArcPy and ArcGIS API for Python• Use ArcPy, pandas, NumPy, and ArcGIS in ArcGIS Pro Notebooks to manage and analyze geospatial data at scale• Integrate with ArcGIS Online using Python to publish and manage dataBook DescriptionIntegrating Python into your day-to-day ArcGIS work is highly recommended when dealing with large amounts of geospatial data. Python for ArcGIS Pro aims to help you get your work done faster, with greater repeatability and higher confidence in your results. Starting from programming basics and building in complexity, two experienced ArcGIS professionals-turned-Python programmers teach you how to incorporate scripting at each step: automating the production of maps for print, managing data between ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online, creating custom script tools for sharing, and then running data analysis and visualization on top of the ArcGIS geospatial library, all using Python. You'll use ArcGIS Pro Notebooks to explore and analyze geospatial data, and write data engineering scripts to manage ongoing data processing and data transfers. This exercise-based book also includes three rich real-world case studies, giving you an opportunity to apply and extend the concepts you studied earlier. Irrespective of your expertise level with Esri software or the Python language, you'll benefit from this book's hands-on approach, which takes you through the major uses of Python for ArcGIS Pro to boost your ArcGIS productivity.What you will learn• Automate map production to make and edit maps at scale, cutting down on repetitive tasks• Publish map layer data to ArcGIS Online• Automate data updates using the ArcPy Data Access module and cursors• Turn your scripts into script tools for ArcGIS Pro• Learn how to manage data on ArcGIS Online• Query, edit, and append to feature layers and create symbology with renderers and colorizers• Apply pandas and NumPy to raster and vector analysis• Learn new tricks to manage data for entire cities or large companiesWho this book is forThis book is ideal for anyone looking to add Python to their ArcGIS Pro workflows, even if you have no prior experience with programming. This includes ArcGIS professionals, intermediate ArcGIS Pro users, ArcGIS Pro power users, students, and people who want to move from being a GIS Technician to GIS Analyst; GIS Analyst to GIS Programmer; or GIS Developer/Programmer to a GIS Architect. Basic familiarity with geospatial/GIS syntax, ArcGIS, and data science (pandas) is helpful, though not necessary.

1

Introduction to Python for GIS

Programming with computers is one of the most rewarding and frustrating of human endeavors.

Those rewards can be in the form of money, as we can see with today’s high-tech salaries. I would argue, however, that the most rewarding part of mastering programming is to make yourself into a computer power user who can execute both simple and complex applications and analyses, written in reusable code, with ease.

The frustrations will come and go, and it is a good thing: you, like me and millions before you, will learn from each mistake. You will grow and learn with each exercise in this book, and by asking the right questions and paying close attention you can avoid some of these issues.

If you are an ArcGIS expert or novice, seeking to expand on your skillsets, congratulations – you are in the right place. In this book, you will learn how to take your existing GIS expertise (or interest) and multiply its potential using a deceptively simple programming language called Python.

Computer programming is a vast field of knowledge, about which whole books have been written. In this chapter, we will explain the basic knowledge necessary to read, write, and run Python scripts. We’ll leave the ArcGIS tools for later chapters and focus on Python: its beginnings, its current state, how to use it, and importantly, what Python is and what it is not.

We will cover the following topics:

• The basics of Python
• The basics of computer programming
• Installing and importing modules
• Writing and executing scripts

Python: Built different

Guido Van Rossum, the creator of the Python programming language, was frustrated with the state of computer programming in the late 1980s. Programming languages were too complex and, at the same time, too loose with their formatting requirements. This led to large codebases with complex scripts poorly written and rarely documented.

Merely running a simple program could take a long time, as the code would need to be type-checked (variables declared correctly and assigned to the correct data type) and compiled (converted from high-level code written in text files into the assembly language or machine code understood by the CPU).

As this Dutch programmer had completed professional work on the ABC programming language, where he had learned much about language design, he decided he wanted to turn his gripes about the limits of ABC and other languages into a hobby.

With a master’s degree in mathematics and computer science from the University of Amsterdam, his hobbies tended towards the computer, but he did have a love for Monty Python, the British comedy series. So, he combined his passions and created Python, which is now used for all kinds of programmatic solutions. Today Python is everywhere, used to power the internet, kitchen appliances, cars, and so much more. Because of its ubiquity and its simplicity, it has been adopted by the GIS software ecosystem as a standard programming tool.

Thanks to Van Rossum’s extensive experience with the state of computer languages in the 1980s, he was well positioned to create a language that solved many of their deficiencies. He added features that he admired from many other languages and added a few of his own. Here is an incomplete list of Python features built to improve on other languages:

Issue	Improvement	Python feature
Memory overrun	Built-in memory management	Garbage collection and memory management
Slow compiler times	One-line testing, dynamic typing	Python interpreter
Unclear error ...