Generate Depth Areas (Maritime Tools)

Summary

Creates depth area polygon features using a triangulated irregular network (TIN) to query depth information to find whether a closed contour is trending deeper or shallower.

Depth areas are geographic features that are used to depict depth ranges between contours in Electronic Navigational Charts (ENC). The use of a TIN removes ambiguity from using the contour lines only and simplifies the process of creating and attributing the depth polygons. This tool is designed to be more generic and can be used for generating depth polygons for S-100-based products.

Learn more about how Generate Depth Areas works

Usage

It is recommended that you use the same value for the Input TIN parameter as that used for the Input Contour Features parameter.
Contour lines that are not closed are ignored since they cannot be used to generate depth polygons.

Note:

If the extent polygon is not within the TIN domain, contours toward the periphery may not be closed.
If the Depth Direction parameter value is Positive Down, the input contour, maximum depth, and minimum depth values are expected to be positive with drying heights as negative.
If the Depth Direction parameter value is Positive Up, the input contour, maximum depth, and minimum depth values are expected to be negative with drying heights as positive.
Regardless of the input depth direction, the tool always writes the output depth fields as positive with drying heights as negative.
For the S-57 schema, once the Input Contour Features parameter value is provided, the tool automatically populates the value of the Depth Field parameter as VALDCO.
Existing skin-of-earth features (SOE) within the bounds of the Extent Polygon Features value are not used when generating depth areas. If you're applying the tool to regions with existing SOE features, use the Erase tool to remove those areas from the Extent Polygon Features value.
For the S-57 schema, the tool automatically populates the NIS_Products field to All and the PLTS_COMP_SCALE field to the current compilation scale value.
For the S-101 schema, the tool automatically populates the minimumDisplayScale and maximumDisplayScale fields to the current minimum and maximum values, respectively.

Label	Explanation	Data type
Input TIN	The TIN surface from which the nodes will be queried to attribute the depth polygons. It is recommended that you use the same TIN surface that was used to generate the contours.	TIN Layer
Input Contour Features	The depth contours features.	Feature Layer
Depth Field	The field that will store the depth value in the depth contours feature.	Field
Depth Direction	Specifies whether the depth direction is positive upward or positive downward. The direction must be the same as that of the input TIN and contour features for the values of the minimum and maximum depth for the generated depth area polygons to be accurate. Positive Up—The input contour, maximum depth, and minimum depth values must be negative with drying heights as positive. This is the default. Positive Down—The input contour, maximum depth, and minimum depth values must be positive with drying heights as negative.	String
Target Workspace	The geodatabase where the depth polygons will be written. The workspace must be a nautical workspace with either the S-57 or S-101 schema.	Workspace
Minimum Depth	A value that will be used to populate the minimum depth of polygons shallower than the shallowest contour value.	Double
Maximum Depth	A value that will be used to populate the maximum depth of polygons deeper than the deepest contour value.	Double
Extent Polygon Features	The extent polygons within which the depth area polygons will be generated. If no value is provided, the TIN domain will be used.	Feature Layer

Derived output

Label	Explanation	Data type
Updated Depth Areas	The updated Depth Areas feature class.	Feature Layer

arcpy.maritime.GenerateDepthAreas(in_tin, in_contours, contour_depth_field, depth_direction, target_workspace, min_depth, max_depth, in_extent_polygon)

Name	Explanation	Data type
in_tin	The TIN surface from which the nodes will be queried to attribute the depth polygons. It is recommended that you use the same TIN surface that was used to generate the contours.	TIN Layer
in_contours	The depth contours features.	Feature Layer
contour_depth_field	The field that will store the depth value in the depth contours feature.	Field
depth_direction	Specifies whether the depth direction is positive upward or positive downward. The direction must be the same as that of the input TIN and contour features for the values of the minimum and maximum depth for the generated depth area polygons to be accurate. `POSITIVE_UP`—The input contour, maximum depth, and minimum depth values must be negative with drying heights as positive. This is the default. `POSITIVE_DOWN`—The input contour, maximum depth, and minimum depth values must be positive with drying heights as negative.	String
target_workspace	The geodatabase where the depth polygons will be written. The workspace must be a nautical workspace with either the S-57 or S-101 schema.	Workspace
min_depth	A value that will be used to populate the minimum depth of polygons shallower than the shallowest contour value.	Double
max_depth	A value that will be used to populate the maximum depth of polygons deeper than the deepest contour value.	Double
in_extent_polygon	The extent polygons within which the depth area polygons will be generated. If no value is provided, the TIN domain will be used.	Feature Layer

Derived output

Name	Explanation	Data type
updated_depth_areas	The updated Depth Areas feature class.	Feature Layer

Code sample

GenerateDepthAreas example (stand-alone script)

The following stand-alone script demonstrates how to use the GenerateDepthAreas function.

# Import arcpy module
import arcpy

in_tin = r"C:\Data\GDA\tin1"
in_contours = r"C:\Data\GDA\enc.gdb\DepthsL"
contour_depth_field = "VALDCO"
depth_direction = r"POSITIVE_UP"
target_workspace = r"C:\Data\GDA\enc.gdb"
min_depth = -5
max_depth = 50
in_extent_polygon = r"C:\Data\GDA\staging.gdb\Extent"

arcpy.maritime.GenerateDepthAreas(in_tin, in_contours, contour_depth_field, depth_direction, target_workspace, min_depth, max_depth, in_extent_polygon)

Environments

This tool does not use any geoprocessing environments.

Licensing information

Basic: No
Standard: Requires 3D Analyst and ArcGIS Maritime
Advanced: Requires 3D Analyst and ArcGIS Maritime

Generate Depth Areas (Maritime Tools)

Summary

Usage

Note:

Parameters

Derived output

Environments

Licensing information

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