ESRI GIS Model Builder

Who here loves Model Builder?

Well, if you haven't had a reason to use it before, let's chat about it's benefits.  Prior to my working at an engineering firm, I never had a reason to use it.  There wasn't anything that I did on a regular basis that called for it.  I took all of the classes, read all of the books, and I just didn't get why it was useful.

Then, I was asked to convert utilities for a project.  Not just once, but on a weekly basis.  Start to finish, it took me two weeks to convert and clean up the utilities from CAD on that beastly project.  Two.  VERY. PAINFUL. Weeks.  *Bang head against desk here.*

This meant the utilities were never up to date in the project map.  After two months of figuring out the kinks in the conversion process, I was challenged to create a model of this process.  It looked something like this:
Yes I'm OCD, and everything has to line up pretty.

My first model.  I had my doubts that it would improve my two weeks timeline conversion process.  To my complete surprise, and horror, this beautiful model ran flawlessly the first time I hit go.  IT TOOK 20 MINUTES.  I was stunned.  And I almost cried.

Moral of the story?  Don't be afraid to try something new.  This model has grown and incorporated new steps through the years, but is still ever so useful every day around here.  And I am proud.  Sometimes I still want to cry when I think about the multiple two week periods spent working on utilities by hand.  I am much more wise now.



Don't be afraid of iterators.

After you give it a whirl, maybe you can build a model like this:

Can you image debugging this model when it breaks?

Happy GIS-ing!
Lindsy Hales Bentley

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