R-ArcGIS Bridge – Improving methods of statistical analysis in ArcGIS

The R-ArcGIS Bridge is a little-known secret to improving your methods of geostatistical analysis. By integrating ArcGIS and R you can have the best of both geospatial and statistical platforms. With the R-ArcGIS Bridge you and I can now perform and visualise comprehensive statistical analysis directly in ArcGIS Desktop.

 

Why would you use R?

R is a powerful platform for solving big data science problems. R is both an open source language and programming environment, widely used for statistical analysis. R offers an online repository with 6,400 statistical problem-solving packages.

The R-ArcGIS Bridge is a way to load your spatial data into R, or, create custom Geoprocessing Tools in ArcGIS that leverage the capabilities of R. The Bridge can be directly connected to either ArcGIS Pro (version 1.1+) or ArcMap (10.3.1+), and R (3.1+) or RStudio. The R-ArcGIS Bridge can then be used with pre-existing tools written in R, without the need to learn any code!

There are several uses of R-ArcGIS Bridge:

• Use R functions to read and write spatial data
• Convert between data types
• Solve complex geostatistical problems
• Write, configure, and modify an R script to be executed from a Geoprocessing tool
• Share an R script with others as a toolbox

 

How do I get started?

ArcGIS Pro for Imagery Analysis

In previous blogs, I have spoken about how imagery can be utilised within the ArcGIS Platform and how it can be analysed. Through all this it has been about imagery can be viewed downstream. What about the prepossessing or specialised analysis not through web services? Well this is where ArcGIS Pro comes in.

In 2017 Esri has stated that their goal is for ArcGIS Pro to be functionally equivalent or better than the current toolsets in ArcMap. To this end in ArcGIS Pro 1.4 Esri have included a new core tab, Imagery. Core tabs are always on and accessible unlike layer specific tabs which only appear when an entry is selected in the Table of Contents.

Space and Time Cluster Analysis – Can ArcGIS help predict the future?

Everything happens at a place and occurs at some point in time. Space time analysis seeks to understand when and where (and sometimes why) things occur. With the evolution of ArcGIS Pro we now have the opportunity to not only successfully analyse patterns of time and space, but also immerse in a deep 3D visual experience.

ArcGIS allows you to exploit the space and time aspects of your data, allowing you to answer questions like:

1. Is there an emerging hot spot?
2. Are there any anomalies?
3. Where your decisions or resource allocations effective?

Several tools, including Create Space Time Cubes, Cluster and Outlier Analysis, Emerging Hot Sport Analysis and Grouping Analysis assist with answering these difficult questions. So, let’s explore how we can utilise some these tools to analyse earthquakes that have occurred across South Australia. The quake data was sourced online from Geoscience Australia as a csv, recording the last 58 years of earthquakes across the State. Which I then subsequently created a feature class.

Viewing space time cube in ArcGIS Pro

ArcGIS Pro: Lets be animated!

ArcGIS Pro is one of Esri’s new desktop mapping application. With ArcGIS Pro we have the ability to represent and display our spatial information in new and exciting ways. I thought I would spend a minute stepping you through animation in ArcGIS Pro. ArcGIS Pro’s animation toolset allows users to create visually exciting products, as the animation tools can be used in either a 2D map or 3D scene.

Heard of Conda? Wondering how it relates to using Python in ArcGIS Pro (version 1.3)?

After installing ArcGIS Pro 1.3, you may notice a few changes. The scope of this blog will detail Conda – what it is? why this change occurred? and how conda has affected the usage of ArcGIS Desktop functionality when used by ArcGIS Pro? – specifically as at version 1.3 (and later releases).

For those reading, I am assuming your understanding of python is that when used in both ArcGIS 10.x and ArcGIS Pro, this is the primary language to automate, configure and consume your GIS ecosystem. One of the cornerstones within each ecosystem is knowing

Australia is on the move GDA2020

Recently in the Australian media there has been a lot of commentary around the impending update to Australia’s primary datum. From GDA94 to GDA2020. It has even made the British media http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36912700.

At Esri Australia this has prompted a lot of questions from clients in regards to the support of the new datum GDA2020 in ArcGIS. Will ArcGIS support GDA2020 and when will ArcGIS support GDA2020?

Before we start to answer these questions I think it is important we understand exactly what the new datum is and why Geoscience Australia is moving towards a new datum.

Cutting-edge cartography

During my Directions LIVE presentation, I wanted to highlight some of the new and interesting functionality in both ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online, specifically around the areas of cartography and map design.