HOW TO

Extract time intervals from temporal data in ArcGIS Pro

Last Published: October 8, 2024

Summary

This article provides a step-by-step guide for extracting time step intervals (seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks months, years) from a field containing temporal attributes. This can be useful when you want to extract time ranges or when there is a need for generalizing datasets, especially when there are identical geometries with different time attributes. For example, converting daily to monthly readings for a weather station readings layer, before summarizing or deleting identical geometries.

You can convert dates to time step intervals using Temporal encoding with the Encode Field tool.

Note:
The Encode Field tool supports multiple encoding methods, and multiple types of input values, but the Temporal encoding allows only values stored in a Date field. If the temporal attributes are stored as numbers or text, these must first be converted to a Date field. The process for converting an Integer or Short to a Date field follows the same procedure as for converting a Text field. For more details about converting text to dates, see the article Convert a text field to a date field in ArcGIS Pro.

Procedure

  1. Open ArcGIS Pro and add the dataset containing temporal information.
  2. Search for and open the Encode Field (Data Management Tools).
    • In the Geoprocessing pane, type Encode Field and select the Encode Field (Data Management Tools) from the list.
  3. Configure the Encode Field parameters.
    1. Input Table: Select the attribute table containing the date field.
    2. Field to Encode: Choose the date field to be categorized.
    3. Encoding Method: Select Temporal.
    4. Time Step Interval: Specify the interval for time steps (e.g., weeks, months, years) and type a number describing this interval.
    5. Time Step Alignment: Choose how the time steps should align (e.g., End time, Start time, or Reference time).
Note:
If you do not type a number for the Time Step Interval at step 3d. above, the tool will run, but with warning 110013, indicating that a specific default value is used: "The default Time Step Interval is <value> <value>." 
  1. Click Run to execute the tool. This will update the input attribute table with three new fields, categorizing the dates into the specified time steps: 
    • A time step field that contains the encoded time steps.
    • A start time field that contains the start time of the time interval.
    • An end time field that contains the end time of the time interval.

Note:
Time steps can be furthered recalculated with more intuitive attributes using the Calculate Field tool. The dataset can be summarized by the extracted time interval with Summary Statistics tool or be used in the Delete Identical tool where there is a need for deleting identical geometries or attributes. 
Instead of using the workflow in this article, that modifies an input dataset, creating a Space Time Cube, with tools such as Create Space Time Cube By Aggregating Points or Create Space Time Cube From Defined Locations, can also be useful when aggregating time, but the result will be a netCDF that can be visualized in 2D (Visualize Space Time Cube in 2D) and 3D (Visualize Space Time Cube in 3D).

Article ID: 000033295

Software:
  • ArcGIS Pro

Receive notifications and find solutions for new or common issues

Get summarized answers and video solutions from our new AI chatbot.

Download the Esri Support App

Discover more on this topic

Get help from ArcGIS experts

Contact technical support

Download the Esri Support App

Go to download options