geoProspector is simple to use. The following tutorial will introduce you to the majority of features in geoProspector. For more detailed information, see the About geoPropsector section of the documentation. Let’s get started!
1. Start ArcGIS Pro from your Start menu.
2. For this tutorial, select Start without a template.
3. In ArcGIS Pro, add a new map by going to the Insert (A) tab and click New Map (B).
4. To open the geoProspector pane, click on the Add-in (A) tab and then click on the geoProspector (B) icon.
5. ArcGIS Pro should have a map and the geoProspector pane open.
6. For this tutorial, we are going to get the Fire History for the U.S. Forest Service in the Denver Front Range. The U.S. Geological Survey has a Fire History Map Service but doesn’t publish a Feature Service. This means we cannot download this data in ArcGIS Pro and can only view it. But we want to do more with it. geoProspector is here to help!
Let’s copy and paste in the Fire History Map Service URL into the Map Service / Layer URL (A) in the geoProspector pane.
https://wildfire.cr.usgs.gov/arcgis/rest/services/firehistory/MapServer
7. geoProspector will default to the first Layer in a Map Service, which in this case is the BIA Fire History. We are no interested in this layer, so click on the Layer Selector (A) and select the FS Fires (3) layer, which is the U.S. Forest Service Fire History.
If you notice the Feature Count (B), it returned ~301,000 features. That’s a lot of data. We are going to filter it to something more manageable. There are lots of options using the Advanced Settings. The simplest is to use the ArcGIS Pro map extent as a spatial filter.
8. In ArcGIS Pro, let’s zoom the map into the Denver Front Range area. Click the Advanced button to open the Advanced Settings, select Use Current Map Extent (A), and then click OK.
9. If you look at the Feature Count (A), it reduced from ~301,000 features to ~5,000. A much more manageable download.
10. Let’s download the data. Click the folder icon to open a File Dialog to select an Output Geodatabase.
NOTE: You can also use this dialog to create a new File Geodatabase by selecting New Item > File Geodatabase.
11. Once an Output Geodatabase is selected, geoProspector will open the Feature Class dialog where you can create a new or overwrite an existing Feature Class. The default name of the feature class will be the name of your selected layer, but you can change it to anything you wish.
12. Click the Export (A) button to start downloading your features.
13. As your features download, geoProspector displays an Export Progress pane. geoProspector downloads in groups of 500 features and displays various information about the progress of the download. You can cancel anytime by clicking on the Cancel button.
14. When the feature download completes, an Export Summary dialog provides a summary of the features downloaded. Click the Add to Map (A) button to add your downloaded features directly to your ArcGIS Pro map.
15. Your map should be similar to the example below with all the point locations of forest fires on U.S. Forest Service lands in the Denver Front Range. You now have access to manipulate the data; however, you wish. Have fun!
For more detailed information about geoProspector, please see the About geoProspector section of this documentation.
