[GIS] Automatically creating 2D-point features for ArcGIS Desktop from addresses in SQL database

addressarcgis-desktoparcpygeocodingsql

I currently have an SQL-Table which contains our buildings. I already added the table and now want to create features ( 2D-Points ) from that information. The biggest problem I have is that the "location" of those buildings is stored as an address.

I think I may have to use python and ArcPy to automatically add those buildings from the database as features on my map. However, I am new to ArcGIS, so maybe I don't know about some functionality that comes with it. So:

Is there a tool to read addresses from a data source and automatically create points out of those?

Best Answer

What information is in the sql-table? Are you saying it is a sql spatial table or just a listing of building names with addresses?

if just addresses you would need to use the geocoding tool in arcmap.

(ver9.3.x) Under the tools pulldown select geocoding

(ver10) select the geocoding toolbar. This will create a special point file with all the records in your address list with a code indicating whether the address geocoded correctly (or not).

BTW you may need to parse the addresses into seperate fields or use the complete address with the appropriate geocoder.

You can read more about geocoding in the arcmap help search >geocoding
if the data contains x-y information you can simply add the table to arcmap> right click on the table and select Display XY Data. You would then select the coordinate system your data is in (usually going to be [geographic system WGS84]) lat lon.

Related Solutions

[GIS] Move Incorrectly Placed Address Points to Correct Parcel

The following (untested) code should do the trick. This first gets the geometry of the points and polygons into dictionaries, then uses the polygon dictionary with the contains method of the arcpy.Polygon to test if the correct point is inside it. If not it is added to a new dict and used to update the point geometry.

import arcpy

def move_points(addresses, pt_pin_field,  parcels, parcel_pin_field,):

    # get address geometry
    with arcpy.da.SearchCursor(addresses, [pt_pin_field, 'SHAPE@']) as rows:
        point_geom = {r[0]: r[1] for r in rows}

    # get parcel geometry
    with arcpy.da.SearchCursor(parcels, [parcel_pin_field, 'SHAPE@']) as rows:
        par_geom = {r[0]: r[1] for r in rows}

    # move geometry dict
    move_dict = {}
    for pin, pt in point_geom.iteritems():
        if pin in par_geom:
            if not par_geom[pin].contains(pt):
                move_dict[pin] = par_geom[pin].centroid

    # loop through address points and move if point pin doesnt match spatial join pin
    if move_dict:
        with arcpy.da.UpdateCursor(addresses, ['SHAPE@', pt_pin_field]) as rows:
            for row in rows:
                if row[1] in move_dict:
                    row[0] = move_dict[row[1]]
                    rows.updateRow(row)           
    print 'moved {0} points'.format(len(move_dict))
    return

if __name__ == '__main__':

    addresses = r'C:\path\to\address_points.shp'
    add_pin = 'Address_PIN'
    parcel_pin = 'PID'
    parcels = r'C:\path\to\Parcels.shp'

    # run it
    move_points(addresses, add_pin, parcels, parcel_pin)

[GIS] Adding census tracts to addresses using ArcGIS for Desktop

If you have both layers in ArcGIS, use the spatial join tool to capture the census tract attribute to each address point. The address point will be the 'Target Features' and the census tracts will be the 'Join Features'. Use the 'JOIN_ONE_TO_ONE' Join Operation.

This will output a feature class of the addresses including the attributes from the census tracts.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[GIS] Move Incorrectly Placed Address Points to Correct Parcel

[GIS] Adding census tracts to addresses using ArcGIS for Desktop

Related Question