ArcGIS Tools - Feature Compare Tool

ArcGIS tools that make your life easier and harder at the same time. In this video, I'll show you how to use the Feature Compare geoprocessing tool. Stick around for a potential snare if your data doesn't quite match up.
Photo of Maricopa County building - Zeb Micelli, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

[@bretthepler722]

Im taking GIS as an undergrad right now. Its super confusing for me. Ive been watching KZbin videos for hours, and this is literally the only video I could make sense of and follow. Instant subscribe. You've helped me a ton on my term project. Thank you so much!

[@GISChops]

That is really good to hear. Would you mind telling what specifically was helpful to you?

[@jackdrost9555]

Kudos to you Mr. Chops! These are some of the most useful videos I know of for GIS professionals!

[@GISChops]

Thanks! Welcome to Chops Nation, help me get the word out there.

[@jacksonward5287]

All these hidden tools, fantastic.

[@GISChops]

Thank you!

[@JeremyZimmerman]

Glad you are back!

[@GISChops]

Thanks Jeremy!

[@tonystowe9772]

I really enjoy your videos. keep up the good work as we all benefit!

[@GISChops]

Thanks for the kind comment. Would you be interested in doing an interview with me as part of a class I’m taking? It won’t go on KZbin, it’s for my own research for the class. If so send me a dm on Instagram - @gischops

[@owen_e]

The Output to .csv hack is a total game changer for me, thank you!! I've run this tool literally a thousand times and have always just scrolled through the Geoprocessing Messages because the .txt file is such a mess. CSV is loads better -- wow!

[@GISChops]

Awesome! I’m so glad it made a difference for you!

[@GISChops]

I’m conducting interviews for a class I’m taking, would you be interested in chatting with me for an hour? It’s for my own research project, so it won’t go on the channel.

[@owen_e]

@@GISChops Sure! I'll send you an email

[@asdfghjkl-er5bx]

Thank you! This is gonna make my life a lot easier.

[@GISChops]

You are very welcome, thanks for watching!

[@alexbullock3010]

Fantastic info Jeff!!

[@GISChops]

Thanks Alex! You’re my number one fan!

[@kaimee_]

Thanks for the video! I was wondering if there’s a way to compare the geometry only without needing to add a Sort Field? Or if there’s another tool that does that.

[@GISChops]

There’s a “Detect Feature Changes” tool, but only takes line features as input and it requires an advanced license. What are you trying to compare? If the different layers don’t share a common attribute, there may be a way to get an attribute from one layer to the other using a few tools together.

[@GISChops]

Thanks for watching!

[@emersoncardenas]

hi.. thanks for your videos... is posible to repace poligons between two SHP with a same column in the table (PARCEL NUMBER) .. i want to update old parcel polygons with the new parcel polygons. thanks for your help about this.

[@GISChops]

You can do anything with the right queries and tools. Does your new polygon shapefile just contain the changes, or is it a complete parcel layer with updated geometries?

[@emersoncardenas]

@@GISChops its a complete polygon Shape with all the 13 parcel .... i want to always let the old SHP .. and only use the newone for replace the polygons.... as you see, it is a little shape (only 13 parcels) so I dont have problem with a query who replace all the polygons for this... if this work ... I will find the way to put this in a Model Builder too.

[@GISChops]

I use the Truncate Table geoprocessing tool to wipe out the original features, then I use the Append tool to load the new features in.

[@GISChops]

Not sure if those work on shapefiles though.

[@christophercalkins4060]

Very informative video. Do you have any recommendations for ways to compare two polygon feature classes that have a different number of records?

[@GISChops]

Do they have a common field?

[@christophercalkins4060]

@@GISChops Yes they do.

[@GISChops]

@@christophercalkins4060 Then you could get tricky by joining the one with more features to the one with fewer features using that common field, do a query and select everything that isn't null in the joined layer's key field. That's going to give you a selection of everything that is common between the two. Then you can export the selection and compare that layer with the layer with fewer features. I hope that makes sense.

[@christophercalkins4060]

@@GISChops Yes it does! I will try playing around with it. Thank you!

[@giscad2780]

can possible is this , data frame is rotate as per polygon direction when crate data driven pages ?

[@GISChops]

I think you can have a rotation angle in the field of the index layer that would rotate each layout in a map series.

[@heatherhanson7920]

It seems the output is limited to 1500 "differences". Any suggestions on how to compare large datasets? Specifically the shape area.

[@GISChops]

That’s a lot of fixes. The only thing I can think is to do the fixes incrementally. Or run it through the align features geoprocessing tool (advanced license required) fiddling with the tolerances until you get a decent output, then compare them again.

[@sarahsiddiqui8487]

I am running this tool to compare schema of two feature layers, its not generating output file, do you know what could be the reason?

[@GISChops]

Did you turn on the “Continue Comparison” option and specify an output file at the bottom? If you don’t give it a file for output, it will only give you the results as a message in the “Detail” report that shows up after the tool runs.

[@sarahsiddiqui8487]

@@GISChops yes I did all these steps, but for some reason, output loaded pretty late. but it worked! thank you so much.

[@GISChops]

@@sarahsiddiqui8487 I'm glad you were able to get it to work. Thanks for watching and commenting!

[@andrelai5157]

ESRI forcing the ObjectID be the unique identifier instead of letting you choose seems like a huge flaw to this tool. Seems like its been a problem for over a decade. Are there workarounds? Is there another tool you can use that accomplishes the same thing without writing a script?

[@GISChops]

I looked into this, and I don’t think it’s a terrible thing that they use the Object ID to reference the changed features. It would be nice if you could select a field, but the Object ID isn’t going to be modified, so I think it’s alright in this case.

[@GISChops]

Thanks for commenting!

[@nettibyrd7362]

What should I do if I want to compare two feature classes with different numbers of features?

[@GISChops]

That’s the drawback of that tool. Unless the extra features end up at the end of that sort field, this tool isn’t going to be comparing the correct features.

[@TBR_LLC]

what is your license level?

[@GISChops]

For my full time job I have an advanced license. For my side hustle I have a standard.