This guide was created by the staff of the GIS/Data Center at Rice University and is to be used for individual educational purposes only.
The steps outlined in this guide require access to ArcGIS Pro software and data that is available both online and at Fondren Library.
The following text styles are used throughout the guide:
Explanatory text appears in a regular font.
- Instruction text is numbered.
- Required actions are underlined.
- Objects of the actions are in bold.
Folder and file names are in italics.
Names of Programs, Windows, Panes, Views, or Buttons are Capitalized.
'Names of windows or entry fields are in single quotation marks.'
"Text to be typed appears in double quotation marks."
The following step-by-step instructions and screenshots are based on the Windows 10 operating system with the Windows Classic desktop theme and ArcGIS Pro 3.0.0 software. If your personal system configuration varies, you may experience minor differences from the instructions and screenshots. Some of the features covered in this tutorial may not be available if using an older version of ArcGIS Pro.
Python Crash Course
What is Python?
Python is a high-level scripting programming language often used for data analysis, among numerous other applications. In ArcGIS Pro, Python is used to define many of the tools in the background, and can also be utilized by the user to automate part or all of a data analysis project in ArcGIS Pro. This automation is done by writing Python scripts, which are instructions written by the programmer for Python to carry out.
Setting Up a Python Script in ArcGIS Pro
The easiest (and most convenient) way to write Python scripts in ArcGIS Pro is to use notebooks in ArcGIS Pro. We will first set up a notebook in ArcGIS Pro to go over some Python basics, and learn more about notebooks later on.
(setup notebook)
Python Data Types
Numbers
Strings
Lists
Dictionaries
Functions
Conditional Statements
Loops
Using Python in ArcGIS
Field Calculations
Fields in ArcGIS Pro
Why Use Python?
Switching Data Types
Defining a Field from Other Fields
Notebooks
Jupyter Notebooks
Jupyter Notebooks in ArcGIS Pro
Automating Workflow Using Jupyter Notebooks
(go through extended example)