Output of Contour and Kriging functions has the extent of the input and not of the mask

Description

A mask is set in the General tab of the Options dialog box of Spatial Analyst. The Contour or Kriging function is run on a dataset that has a larger extent than the mask. The output dataset has the same extent as the input, not of the mask, as was intended.

Cause

This is a known issue with ArcGIS 8.1.
The Contour and Kriging functions of Spatial Analyst do not respect the Mask set in ArcGIS 8.1.

Solution or Workaround

• For the Kriging operation:
  
  1. Run a “relation equal to” operation in the Raster Calculator with the output from the Kriging function.
  
  2. Enter the output raster layer into the Raster Calculator:
  
  [outlayer]
  
  This will yield a final raster with the same extent as the mask.
  
  
• For the Contour operation:
  
  1. Clip the data to be contoured by using a “relation equal to” operation in the Raster Calculator.
  
  2. Type the layer to be clipped to the mask in the Raster Calculator:
  
  [inlayer]
  
  3. Use the resulting raster in the Contour function. The final result will be a dataset with the same extent as the mask.