I already hate Python, but their “IDE” makes it worse.  Fortunately, Atom.io can fix the IDE problem.

Atom.io is a Github product that whips the IDLE Python’s ass.  It’s not actually an IDE, it’s  a text editor, but it’s a text editor on steroids.

I stumbled upon a plugin for Atom to run various languages right in the window, including Python.  The problem is that it doesn’t work right out of the box in Windows.  Fixing this is easy:

1. Go to File – Settings (you can also press CTRL+,)
2. Select Install
3. In the search box, type “script” and it should come up after a few seconds
4. Click install

Once it is installed (which should take less than a minute on a modern Internet connection), you will need to update the startup script to fix the path.  To do that:

1.  Go to File – Open Your Init Script
2. Add the following line

process.env.path = [“C:\Python27\ArcGIS10.2”,process.env.PATH].join(“;”)

NOTE: I’m using the ArcGIS-bundled Python – you may need to fix that path!

Once the init script is updated, close and re-open Atom, and you should be able to select Packages – Script – Run Script (or press CTRL+SHIFT+B) to run a Python script.

/A

https://twitter.com/okiAndrew/status/605718135501692928

https://twitter.com/okiAndrew/status/602277370859487232

All other languages tired of Python's shit. Any comments @okiAndrew ☺ http://t.co/THridzb3DG via @wordpressdotcom

— Krishnan V @matungawalla@transportation.social (@matungawalla) March 20, 2015

(my hate for Python is well-known!)

I stumbled on a problem that seems to have no easy answer.  Working on the count stations layer here at the office, I found that we had a small number of points that weren’t located in the GIS feature class, although we DO have X and Y coordinates for them.

Since searching on Google turned up nothing, I wrote my own solution.  Since I already had some Java code to look for selected features and get to the actual features, I copied that code into a new project and made a few modifications.  Those modifications are posted on Github.  Even better, I actually used a few comments in this one! 🙂

I’ve been up to a few things that haven’t made it to this blog.

First, I’ve done a few conversion tools for converting Tranplan/INET to Voyager PT and back again.  These are open-source tools that are meant to help, but they may not be perfect (and I don’t have the time to make sure they do).  If anyone wants to upload fixes, you’ll get credit for it (but you have to let me know, as I think I have to allow that in Github).

Next, I’ve been heavily working on QC of my transit on-board survey.  This has resulted in some more work being uploaded to Github.  I’ve written some to assist in trying to figure out what I need to actually look at and what is probably okay enough to ignore.

I’ve seen some stuff come out of the Census related to an API, and I did post some example code to the CTPP listserve to help.  Since I didn’t want to bog down some people with my code, I put it in a Gist (which is below).

This code will get Census data using their API and chart it.  Note that you have to install PyGTK All-In-One to make it work.  Of course, mind the items that Krishnan Viswanathan posted to the Listserve – they help make sense of the data!

I’m also working on an ArcMap add-in that will help with QC-ing data that has multiple elements.  It is on Github, but currently unfinished.  This is something for advanced users.

I will have a few tips coming for some Cube things I’ve done recently, but those will be for another blog post.  With that, I will leave with the first publicly-available video I’ve ever posted to YouTube.  Of a traffic signal malfunction.  I’m sure Hollywood will start calling me to direct the next big movie any day now… 🙂