Prerequisites

"Along with ArcGIS ModelBuilder, a data set and scripts are required."

For this chapter, the accompanying data and scripts should be downloaded from Packt Publishing's website. The completed scripts are available for comparison purposes and the data will be used for this chapter's analysis.

ModelBuilder

ArcGIS has been in development since the 1970s. During that time, it included a variety of programming languages and tools to help GIS analysts automate analyses and map production. These include the Avenue scripting language in the ArcGIS 3x series and the ARC Macro Language (AML) in the ARC/Info workstation days, as well as VBScript up until ArcGIS 10x when Python was introduced. Another useful tool introduced in ArcGIS 9x was ModelBuilder, a visual programming environment used for both modeling analysis and creating tools that can be used repeatedly with different input feature classes.

Another useful feature of ModelBuilder is an export function that allows modelers to create...