Accessing 9.x Spatial Analyst toolbar functionality in ArcGIS 10

In ArcGIS 10, all of the capabilities of Spatial Analyst are available to you through geoprocessing tools and Python.

If you are familiar with the Spatial Analyst toolbar in 9.3external link and earlier releases of ArcGIS, you will notice that the toolbar in ArcGIS 10 no longer has the drop-down list of certain individual operations. There were only about 30 individual capabilities that were directly available that way, but using the geoprocessing tools instead provides full access to all 170 individual capabilities of Spatial Analyst, including 14 operations that were not available in the old Raster Calculator or Workstation Grid.

If you wish, you can customize the default Spatial Analyst toolbar by adding any specific tools you frequently use to it.

9.x Toolbar tools and their Geoprocessing tool equivalents

The following table maps the relationship between the tools available on the Spatial Analyst toolbar in ArcGIS 9.x with their corresponding Spatial Analyst geoprocessing tools in ArcGIS 10.

9.3 Spatial Analyst toolbar control

Geoprocessing tool equivalent

Distance

Straight Line

Optional outputs:

  • Create direction
  • Create allocation

Euclidean Distance

Optional outputs:

Allocation

Euclidean Allocation

Cost Weighted

Optional outputs:

  • Create direction
  • Create allocation

Cost Distance

Optional outputs:

Shortest Path

Cost Path

Density

Density type:

  • Kernel
  • Simple

Equivalent:

Interpolate to Raster

Inverse Distance Weighted

IDW

Spline

Spline

Kriging

Kriging

Surface Analysis

Contour

Contour

Slope

Slope

Aspect

Aspect

Hillshade

Hillshade

Viewshed

Observer Points,

Viewshed

Cut/Fill

Cut Fill

Cell Statistics

Cell Statistics

Neighborhood Statistics

Focal Statistics

Zonal Statistics

Zonal Statistics as Table

Zonal Histogram

Zonal Histogram

Reclassify

Reclassify

Raster Calculator

Raster Calculator

Convert

Features to raster

Feature to Raster

(In the Conversion toolbox > To Raster toolset.)

Raster to Features

Raster to Point

Raster to Polyline

Raster to Polygon

(In the Conversion toolbox > From Raster toolset.)

Options

General tab:

  • Working directory
  • Analysis mask
  • Coordinate system

Equivalent:

Extent tab:

  • Analyst extent
  • Snap extent to

Equivalent:

Cell Size

  • Analysis cell size

Equivalent:

Analysis environment

In ArcGIS 9.x, the analysis environment for the toolbar was controlled from the Options menu and was separate from the environment settings used by geoprocessing tools. This could lead to some confusion and inconsistent results for similar operations performed between the toolbar and the geoprocessing tool. ArcGIS 10 simplifies things by having only one analysis environment when running tools. Reference the geoprocessing environment settings for more information.

Finding equivalent tools from the 9.x toolbar

If you are having difficulty finding the Spatial Analyst geoprocessing tool that corresponds to a tool from the old Spatial Analyst toolbar, the Search window has been programmed to include the old names and provide you with the new equivalent.

For example, to find the equivalent for the Distance > Straight Line tool from the Spatial Analyst 9.3 toolbar, do the following:

  1. Click on the Search button Search or hit Ctrl+F.
  2. Click on the Tools link.
  3. Type the name of the tool you are looking for in the search box and press Return.

You should see the name of the tool to use in the returned list. In the following example, the Shortest Path item on the toolbar was searched on, and the first return was Cost Path, which is the geoprocessing tool equivalent of this toolbar function.

Searching for the Spatial Analyst 9.x toolbar equivalent

Map Algebra and the Raster Calculator

The Raster Calculator tool that was available in ArcGIS 9.x has been superseded by a new Raster Calculator geoprocessing tool in ArcGIS 10. This new tool has a similar calculator-like interface to that in the previous toolbar, allowing you to easily execute Map Algebra expressions. It can also be used in ModelBuilder in a similar way to the SOMA (Single Output Map Algebra) tool that was available in previous releases.

Related Topics

12/16/2013