| Label | Explanation | Data Type |
Input Layer | The point, line, or polygon features that will be overlaid with the overlay layer. | Feature Layer |
Overlay Layer | The features that will be overlaid with the input layer features. | Feature Layer |
Output Feature Class | A new feature class with overlaid features. | Feature Class |
Overlay Type
| Specifies the type of overlay to be performed.
| String |
Summary
Overlays the geometries from multiple layers into a single layer. Overlay can be used to combine, erase, modify, or update spatial features.
Overlay is used to answer one of the most basic questions of geography, What is on top of what? The following are examples:
- What parcels are within the 100-year floodplain? (Within is another way of saying on top of.)
- What land use is on top of what soil type?
- What mines are within abandoned military bases?
Illustration
Usage
Use examples include the following:
- The department of environmental quality wants to monitor the impact of grazing livestock on the state's water quality. Biologists with the department need to determine where the land deemed to be grazing allotments intersect certain watersheds. Overlay Layers can be used to find intersecting areas.
- A development company wants to build a golf resort in one of three centrally located counties in their state. Before they can begin planning, they need to determine whether there is enough privately owned land within those counties that they may be able to purchase for the resort. Overlay Layers can be used to remove the publically owned lands from the selected counties.
The supported overlay methods and input geometries are described in the following table:
Input and overlay geometry types Intersect Erase Union Identity Symmetric Difference Point and point
Point and polyline
Point and polygon
Polyline and point
Polyline and polyline
Polyline and polygon
Polygon and point
Polygon and polyline
Polygon and polygon
Overlay method Description Intersect
The features or portions of features in the overlay that overlap the input features are preserved. The input and feature geometry must be the same.
This is the default.
Erase
The features or portions of features in the input layer that do not overlap the features in the overlay layer are written to the output.
Union
The result will contain a geometric union of the input layer and overlay layer. All features and their attributes will be written to the layer.
Identity
The result will contain features or portions of features of the input features and overlay features. Features or portions of features that overlap in both input layer and overlay layer will be written to the output layer.
Symmetric Difference
The result will contain features or portions of features of the input layer and the overlay layer that do not overlap.
This geoprocessing tool is powered by Spark. Analysis is completed on your desktop machine using multiple cores in parallel. See Considerations for GeoAnalytics Desktop tools to learn more about running analysis.
When running GeoAnalytics Desktop tools, the analysis is completed on your desktop machine. For optimal performance, data should be available on your desktop. If you are using a hosted feature layer, it is recommended that you use ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server. If your data isn't local, it will take longer to run a tool. To use your ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server to perform analysis, see GeoAnalytics Tools.
Parameters
arcpy.geoanalytics.OverlayLayers(input_layer, overlay_layer, out_feature_class, overlay_type)
| Name | Explanation | Data Type |
input_layer | The point, line, or polygon features that will be overlaid with the overlay layer. | Feature Layer |
overlay_layer | The features that will be overlaid with the input layer features. | Feature Layer |
out_feature_class | A new feature class with overlaid features. | Feature Class |
overlay_type | Specifies the type of overlay to be performed.
| String |
Code sample
The following Python window script demonstrates how to use the OverlayLayers function.
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Name: OverlayLayers.py
# Description: Remove areas that are already developed from proposed development sites
# Import system modules
import arcpy
arcpy.env.workspace = "c:/data/data.gdb"
# Set local variables
inFeatures = "areasOfInterest"
overlayFeatures = "commercial"
out = "DevelopmentSites"
overlayType = "ERASE"
# Run Overlay Layers
arcpy.gapro.OverlayLayers(inFeatures, overlayFeatures, out,
overlayType)