Using ArcPy Search Cursors to Perform Spatial Analysis by Each Record in a Jurisdictional Dataset

Cumberland County is in the process of updating our Hazard Mitigation Plan.  Our GIS Department is focused on developing a web map series application, and performing various spatial analyses to support the plan. One of the first analyses we were asked to complete was to get a count of the number of structures in the …

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Announcing the Python for ArcGIS Course

Last summer was a busy and exciting season of life.  My wife and I welcomed our third child into the world, and I had the opportunity to develop the Python for ArcGIS course for Harrisburg Area Community College.  This self-paced online course is now available to purchase. The course consists of video lessons, exercises, and recommended …

Are You Thinking About Your Map Users?

Over the past few years, I've been working on a side project to update the hiking trails map for a small camp.  Though the project has taken longer than I anticipated, it has been very rewarding.  This past week, I think we finally finished the map.  And it was during this last revision process that …

Building A Soils Clip Tool for Agricultural Preservation Reporting

I'm getting close to wrapping up a project for our Planning department and wanted to share about it.  It's a custom ArcGIS Desktop geoprocessing tool that stemmed from a conversation with one of our planners.  He was having trouble clipping a dataset.  After figuring out the issue, I had him walk me through his entire …

Automating File Transfer from an FTP Site With Python

I wanted to share a project I'm working on as part of my involvement with South Central Task Force GIS Workgroup.  As part of our monthly regional data update process, a file geodatabase is created.  It contains updated versions of various datasets ranging from road centerlines to parks.    The geodatabase is zipped and placed …

Some Tools I Use As A GIS Developer

I'm teaming up with Harrisburg University to hold the first-ever GeoDev Summit in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  The event will be held on March 5, 2018, and will have technical sessions for experienced GIS Developers, as well as those just getting started.  As I've been considering what types of sessions to provide for new developers, I thought …

Converting Parcels to Address Points With a Python Script

I feel that I have grown in leaps and bounds this year with my Python and ArcPy coding skills.  A big part of this has been the various projects I've taken on helping the Pennsylvania South Central Task Force's (SCTF) GIS Workgroup with its regional data sharing.  I've also been learning a lot about ArcPy …

Automating GIS Workflows with Python Scripts

This week I am presenting a session titled Automating Workflows with Python at the Pennsylvania GIS Conference.  The session walks people through the process of creating a Python script that can be set-up as a Windows Scheduled Task.  This would allow simple tasks like data replication and rebuilding address locators to automatically run on a weekly …

Script Example: Move and Unzip File; Rename Zipped File

I wanted to share a script I developed as part of a regional GIS group Cumberland County is a member of.  Each member county extracts their data and uploads it to an FTP site.  Then a extract-transform-load process (several scripts) is completed to update the regional datasets.  The simple utility script I'm sharing accomplishes two goals: …