Addison's GIS Journey

Hello blog! My name is Addison Adkins and I am currently enrolled in a GIS program at the University of West Florida. I am currently an environmental specialist with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. I joined the program to learn something new and help develop GIS skills. I hope to be able to use the skills I have learned here and apply them to my current role, as well as future ones. Some adjectives I would use to describe myself are hardworking and caring. Here is the link to my story map:  https://arcg.is/1if0v91 Links to an external site.  

 This lab worked on creating a search cursor to iterate over shapefile geometries. A nested loop was introduced and used in the code. As well as how to get a text file to print from python. The images below shows The feature ID, vertex ID, X coordinate, Y coordinate, and name of river feature. Flowchart of code:

 This week's lab worked on using search cursors, lists, and dictionaries. Using a search cursor a dictionary was created and populated the name, feature type, and population of each County Seat city in New Mexico. The first screenshot below shows that a new file geodatabase(fGDB) was created. As well as a list of all feature classes copied over to the new fGDB. The next screenshots show the search cursor for the cities feature class that retrieves the Name, Feature Type, and Population. The last screenshot show the dictionary that was populated to show the name and populations of all County Seat cities in New Mexico. I had the most trouble with using a for loop to populate the dictionary of all County Seat cities.  I used a similar for loop as I did for the search cursor.  However by researching and reading, a for loop using the cursor can only be used once in a code.  I created a new cursor to be able to populate the dictionary of all County Seat cities.  Flow ...

This week we worked on creating and modifying scripts within ArcGIS Pro Notebook. The three scripts that were written within notebook performed Add XY Coordinates, Buffer, and Dissolve. The ESRI ArcGIS pages on these were very helpful in the process of writing these codes. Add XY Coordinates The successful script added XY coordinates to the hospital shapefile. When the attribute table was opened the coordinates could be viewed. 1000m Buffer The successful script added a 1000 meter buffer around each hospital point on the map.  Dissolve The successful script dissolved the buffer previously created into a single-feature layer. We were also introduced to ModelBuilder in this module. ModleBuilder takes geoprocessed tools and turns them into flow charts. From this you can also export a Python code that it has written.

 In this week's lab we were given three scripts to understand debugging procedures and handle error messages. Debugging in Python is essential to improving the code quality and productivity. Understanding and handling error messages is important because it stops the programs execution of the script. Being able to read and interpret the error message is critical to identify the problem within the code. This project also incorporated pulling information from ArcGIS with a Python script. The first script given had two errors that needed to be addressed. One demonstrated how Python is case sensitive and something need to be capitalized. The other had two words switched around causing Python not to understand what you were asking it to execute. The following image shows Python shell output of the successful script with the name of all the layers in the ArcGIS project. The second script had multiple errors and exceptions throughout. The variable "filepath" had the incorrect fil...

 Successful script results The screenshot above shows the successful script results from four python scripts: 1. Printing Last Name     My last name "Adkins" is printed as the last name from a list created using my full name. 2. Dice Game The results of a simulated dice game from a list of players. Each player's roll result is shown in the screenshot and the outcome (win, lose, or tie) of their roll. 3. Random Integer List  A list of 20 randomly generated numbers from 0 to 10 was created. 4. Removing Integer from List An integer was chosen to be removed from the previously created random integer list.  9 (the chosen integer) was then removed from the list 4 times generating a new list. Below are flowcharts for each script: Printing Last Name Dice Game Random Integer List Removing Integer from List Here are the steps I took when creating the Removing Integer from List code: 1          I selected the number “9” as the intege...

The first week of class has been focused on getting familiar with general information about Python. We looked at two different Python interpreters Integrated Development and Learning Environment (IDLE) and ArcGIS Notebooks and how they read and execute Python code. IDLE has two main window types the shell window and the editor window. ArcGIS Notebooks provide a space to edit, write, document, and run Python code within ArcGIS Pro. With ArcGIS Notebooks you can easily incorporate Python and maps together. Using a prewritten script that was run through IDLE folders and subfolders for the course were created. We were also tasked with using code to print and then interpret The Zen of Python by Tim Peters. Which  gives a set of guiding principles in writing effective and readable Python code. A few of the set of guidelines it emphasizes include simplicity, clarity, and readability. When handling errors they should not be ignored unless purposeful. If you run into an issue do not guess, ...