Working on doing some advanced ArcGIS server printing and had the need to batch convert many existing .mxd files to .lyr files. So instead of opening up X number of map documents, thought I would do it via code. All of my .mxds in this case had just one data frame so the process was pretty simple–I add an empty group layer (Thanks Petr Krebs for the idea), copy all the existing layers into it, and save it out as a layer file.

I just had the need to go through a directory containing many (100+) layer files (.lyr) and verify the data sources in each. I could have loaded each into ArcMap and checked the properties, but choose not to. Here’s the bare-bones script I used instead: import arcpy, glob,os theDir = r"L:\gdrs\data\org\us_mn_state_dnr\elev_minnesota_lidar\\" os.chdir(theDir) for iFile in glob.glob("*.lyr"): print iFile lyr = arcpy.mapping.Layer(iFile) for i in arcpy.mapping.ListLayers(lyr): try: print " {0}: {1}".format(i,i.dataSource) except: print " {0}: Does not support dataSource".

I mentioned using Tapiriik to batch download my entire Garmin Connect history–over 1,000 separate .GPX files. I found several tools to convert .GPX to shapefiles that worked but none seemed to recognize my heart rate data. The trick is Garmin extends the GPX specification to incorporate the heart rate: <span style="color: #333333;">xmlns:gpxtpx="http://www.garmin.com/xmlschemas/TrackPointExtension/v1"</span> Each track point looks like this: 2014-03-16T20:35:47+00:00 296.20001220703125 86 gpxtpx:TrackPointExtension trkpt  Since the first few exiting GPX converters failed to meet my needs, I decided to make my own, at least partially.

This Friday Fave is a little bit different. My interest in geospatial technologies (although we just called it GIS back then) largely because I wanted to measure my running routes more accurately and efficiently than the paper map & scrap of paper method I was using in the early 90s. When I was introduced to GIS, I knew what I was going to use it for. Now that GPS technology is ubiquitous–I’m currently using four different GPS devices, at the same time, on my bike rides–I seldom have to use a map to measure my routes.

I admit, I love picking up freebie maps. Whether it is from the front desk of a hotel or from the bicycle shop, there is a certain appeal to seeing what people put on maps. I have maps organic orchards, breweries, Minnesota authors, rails to trails, zoos, fictional places, race maps, and a variety of other things that someone felt the need to cartographize.(http://thefriends.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/mn_writers_on_the_map_web_download.pdf)http://thefriends.org/ So, with all these paper maps lying around, I was thrilled to find Custom Maps, a free app on Google Play.

Obviously Cartographers belong in the same category as other superheroes like Superman, Batman, and Spiderman and we finally have a our own comic book to prove it. Cartozia Tales is a collaborative effort of nine indy artists with two guest artist each issue. They have an interesting plan, they’ve split the world into nine regions (what’s the name for the ninth of an area, nona-rant?) and the artist will tell a story from a different region each issue.

Discovered something today. I was working on an arcpy script that copies a raster dataset from a file geodatabase into a Postgres SDE geodatabase and then does some boring routine tasks–building stats, creating a mosaic dataset, adding the raster to the mosaic dataset and making a couple referenced mosaic datasets. It sometimes has trouble with the initial step of uploading the raster because of the sheer size of if (1m elevation raster for counties) and it failed today on one.

I am working on an data-entry application to edit feature classes that contain several coded-value-domains. The problem with some of the domains, however, is that some entries have been added after the initial creation. So the first 25 entries are in alphabetical order and there are some stragglers at the end that are in the order they were appended. This can be confusing for users–they go to select ‘Milli Vanilli’ and look between ‘Madonna’ and ‘Motley Crue’ but can not find their favorite band there–they have to go to the end of the list to find their selection.

One of the things I had not gotten around to doing in ArcGIS 10 was figure out how to directly manipulate the geometry of a record using the Field Calculator. When I stumbled upon a bug in the way the Extract Values to Points tool handles Null geometries, I figured it was time to figure it out. Setting the X, Y to 0,0 was sufficient for my needs. I set the Parser to Python and the formula was simple once I figured out the syntax:

Subtitled: Why error messages are good. Came up with another error while running TopoToRaster but this time ArcGIS gave an error message that led to a solution. Turned out all my contour lines had an elevation of 16 which TopoToRaster did not like. I had intended to increase the elevation and inadvertently set them all to sixteen. I had saved the previous values before editing so it turned out to be a simple fix and I didn’t have to spend a day trying figure out what was wrong.