An overview of geoprocessing environment settings

Geoprocessing environments are additional settings that affect a tool's results. They differ from tool parameters because they don't appear on the Geoprocessing pane's Parameters tab (with certain exceptions). Rather, they are values you set once using the Environments dialog box, or for an individual tool run using the Geoprocessing pane's Environments tab, and are used by tools when they are run.

Learn more about geoprocessing environment settings

Workspace environments

Environment	Description
Current Workspace	Tools that honor the Current Workspace environment use the workspace specified as the default location for geoprocessing tool inputs and outputs.
Package Workspace	The Package Workspace environment setting is the location of a folder that locates the contents of a shared geoprocessing package or service.
Scratch Folder	The Scratch Folder environment setting is the location of a folder you can use to write file-based data, such as shapefiles, text files, and layer files.
Scratch GDB	The Scratch GDB environment setting is the location of a file geodatabase you can use to write temporary data.
Scratch Workspace	Tools that honor the Scratch Workspace environment use the specified location as the default workspace for output datasets. The scratch workspace is intended for output data you do not want to maintain.

Output Coordinates environments

Environment	Description
Output Coordinate System	Tools that honor the Output Coordinate System environment will create output geodatasets with the specified coordinate system.
Geographic Transformations	Tools that honor the Geographic Transformations environment will use the transformation methods when projecting data.

Processing Extent environments

Environment	Description
Extent	Tools that honor the Extent environment will only process features or rasters that are within the extent specified in this setting.

Parallel Processing environments

Environment	Description
Number of Retries on Failures	Tools that honor the Number of Retries on Failures environment will retry the same worker process a specified number of attempts when there is a failure processing a particular job.
Parallel Processing Factor	Tools that honor the Parallel Processing Factor environment will divide and perform operations across multiple processes.
Recycle Interval of Processing Workers	Tools that honor the Recycle Interval Of Processing Workers environment define how many image sections will be processed before restarting worker processes to prevent potential failures in long-running processes.

Raster Analysis environments

Environment	Description
Cell Alignment	Tools that honor the Cell Alignment environment will adjust the cell alignment of the output to match the cell alignment of the specified processing extent.
Cell Size	Tools that honor the Cell Size environment set the output raster cell size, or resolution, for the operation. The default output resolution is determined by the coarsest of the input raster datasets.
Cell Size Projection Method	Tools that honor the Cell Size Projection Method environment will use the specified method for calculating the output raster cell size when datasets are projected during analysis.
Mask	Tools that honor the Mask environment will only consider those cells that fall within the analysis mask in the operation.
Snap Raster	Tools that honor the Snap Raster environment will adjust the extent of output rasters so that they match the cell alignment of the specified snap raster.

Geodatabase environments

Environment	Description
Output CONFIG Keyword	Tools that honor the Output CONFIG Keyword environment will use the specified keyword when creating datasets in a geodatabase.
Auto Commit	Tools that honor the Auto Commit environment will force a commit after the specified number of changes have been made within an enterprise geodatabase transaction.
Maintain Attachments	Tools that honor the Maintain Attachments environment will copy attachments from the input features to the output features. An attachment table and a relationship class will be created.

Geodatabase Advanced environments

Environment	Description
Preserve Global IDs	Tools that honor the Preserve Global IDs environment will reuse the Global ID values of the existing input dataset when appending rows to a target dataset.
Transfer Geodatabase Field Properties	Tools that honor the Transfer Geodatabase Field Properties environment will transfer domains, subtypes, attribute rules, field groups, and contingent values from the input dataset's fields to the output dataset's fields.

Fields environments

Environment	Description
Transfer field domain descriptions	Tools that honor the Transfer field domain descriptions environment control whether the output will include fields containing domain and subtype descriptions, as well as fields containing domain and subtype codes. This setting is relevant when the input to a geoprocessing tool is a geodatabase feature class or table with defined domains and subtypes.
Maintain fully qualified field names	Tools that honor the Maintain fully qualified field names environment use this setting to distinguish between qualified and unqualified field names. Qualified field names are the names of fields in a feature class or table that have the name of the origin feature class or table appended to the field name. This setting is relevant when working with joined data.

XY Values environments

Environment	Description
Output XY Domain	Tools that honor the Output XY Domain environment will set the specified range to the output geodataset's x,y domain.
XY Resolution	Tools that honor the XY Resolution environment will apply the x,y resolution to output geodatasets. The x,y resolution, expressed as a very small distance, refers to the number of significant digits used to store x,y coordinate values.
XY Tolerance	Tools that honor the XY Tolerance environment will override the default x,y tolerance on geodatasets created in a geodatabase.

M Values environments

Environment	Description
Output M Domain	Tools that honor the Output M Domain environment will generate output datasets with the specified measure domain (m-domain).
Output has M Values	Tools that honor the Output has M Values environment will control whether the output geodataset will store m-values.
M Tolerance	Tools that honor the M Tolerance environment will override the default m-tolerance on geodatasets created in a geodatabase.
M Resolution	Tools that honor the M Resolution environment will apply the m-resolution to output geodatasets. The m-resolution, expressed as a very small distance, refers to the number of significant digits used to store m-values.

Z Values environments

Environment	Description
Output Z Domain	Tools that honor the Output Z Domain environment will generate output datasets with the specified z-domain.
Default Output Z Value	Tools that honor the Default Output Z Value environment will set the z-coordinate for each output vertex that does not already have a z-coordinate.
Output has Z Values	Tools that honor the Output has Z Values environment will control whether the output geodataset will store z-values.
Z Resolution	Tools that honor the Z Resolution environment will apply the z-resolution to output geodatasets. The z-resolution, expressed as a very small distance, refers to the number of significant digits used to store z-coordinate values.
Z Tolerance	Tools that honor the Z Tolerance environment will override the default z-tolerance on geodatasets created in a geodatabase.

Random Numbers environments

Environment	Description
Random Number Generator	Tools that use the Random Number Generator environment use algorithms that use the seed and distribution to produce a sequence of random numbers.

Cartography environments

Environment	Description
Cartographic Coordinate System	Tools that honor the Cartographic Coordinate System environment will use the specified coordinate system to determine the size, extent, and spatial relationships of features when making calculations.
Reference Scale	Tools that honor the Reference Scale environment will consider the graphical size and extent of symbolized features as they appear at the reference scale.
Cartographic Partitions	Tools that honor the Cartographic Partitions environment will subdivide input features by the specified partition polygon features for sequential processing to avoid memory limitations that may otherwise be encountered with large datasets.
Annotation Text String Field Length	Tools that honor the Annotation Text String Field Length environment will override the default field length on the TextString field in any annotation feature classes created in a database.

Raster Storage environments

Environment	Description
Pyramid	Tools that honor the Pyramid environment will only process rasters where the pyramids are valid. Pyramids for ERDAS IMAGINE files have limited options that can be set.
Raster Statistics	Tools that honor the Raster Statistics environment control how statistics are built for output raster datasets.
Compression	Tools that honor the Compression environment will set the compression type when storing output raster datasets.
Tile Size	Tools that honor the Tile Size environment set the tile size for rasters that are stored in blocks of data.
Resampling Method	Tools that honor the Resampling Method environment interpolate pixel values while transforming your raster dataset. This is used when the input and output do not line up exactly, when the pixel size changes, when the data is shifted, or a combination of these.
NoData	Tools that honor the NoData environment will only process rasters in which the NoData value is valid.

Terrain Dataset environments

Environment	Description
Minimize memory use during analysis on terrains	Tools that honor the Minimize memory use during analysis on terrains environment control memory use during analysis on terrains.

TIN environments

Environment	Description
Default TIN Storage Version	Tools that honor the Default TIN Storage Version environment will output TIN surfaces in the specified version.

Geostatistical Analysis environments

Environment	Description
Coincident Points	Tools that honor the Coincident Points environment define how coincident data is treated in Geostatistical Analyst.

Vector Analysis environments

Environment	Description
Maintain Curve Segments	Tools that honor the Maintain Curve Segments environment will maintain input curve segments in the output.

Maritime environments

Environment	Description
S-100 Feature Catalogue File	Tools that honor the S-100 Feature Catalogue File environment use the file specified to map objects, attributes, feature classes, and relationships during data import and the creation of database schemas.

Processor Type environments

Environment	Description
Processor Type	Tools that honor the Processor Type environment allow you to choose where and how you want to process your data.
GPU ID	Tools that honor the GPU ID environment identify the GPU to use to process your data.

Remote Processing Server environments

Environment	Description
Username	The username that is authorized to use the Raster Processing service.
Password	The password associated with the username that is authorized to use the Raster Processing service.
Processing Server	The ArcGIS server name or IP address that has the Raster Processing system service enabled.

Note:

Tools that honor the Remote Processing Server set of environments specify the server, username, and password for ArcGIS Server when you use the Parallel Processing Factor environment.

Multidimensional Analysis environments

Environment	Description
Match Multidimensional Variable	Tools that honor the Match Multidimensional Variable environment will generate a multidimensional raster only if the input multidimensional rasters share at least one variable with the same name.
Union Dimension	Tools that honor the Union Dimension environment will generate a multidimensional raster that includes all the dimensions from the input multidimensional rasters.

Time environments

Environment	Description
Adjust for Daylight Saving	Tools that honor the Adjust for Daylight Saving environment adjust the values in the date field's time zone to account for daylight saving time.
Time Zone	Tools that honor the Time Zone environment will specify the time zone in which the date fields are stored.

Business Analyst environments

Environment	Description
Data Source	Tools that honor the Data Source environment comply with how data is summarized from one layer to another. This environment is used by Business Analyst tools only.
Network Source	Tools that honor the Network Source environment allow you to set your network dataset or service used for network distance calculation tasks. This is used by Business Analyst tools only.
Use Detailed Aggregation	Tools that honor the Use Detailed Aggregation environment will use a detailed data aggregation method for areas beyond a specified radius. This environment is used by Business Analyst tools only.