Your cart is empty.
Keep shopping
Essentials for ArcPy: Python for Geospatial Automation
14,153 students
Essentials for ArcPy: Python for Geospatial Automation
Automate ArcGIS with Python - vector and raster workflows, Landsat NDVI and LST, and your own custom toolboxes
Created bySenior Assist Prof Azad Rasul
Last updated 8/2026
English
English [Auto],
What you'll learn
- Set up ArcPy and write your first working script from the ArcGIS Python window, with no guesswork about the environment
- Automate vector workflows - selections, buffers, overlays, clipping and data extraction - across many layers at once
- Process raster data with ArcPy, including Landsat imagery and map algebra for spatial analysis
- Calculate NDVI from Landsat bands and build a Land Surface Temperature (LST) workflow from start to finish
- Build reusable ArcPy toolboxes so your scripts become tools you and your colleagues can run again
- Read, modify and debug existing ArcPy scripts instead of starting from scratch every time
Explore related topics
Course content
6 sections • 13 lectures • 2h 24m total length
Requirements
- Access to ArcGIS on a Windows PC - the lectures are demonstrated in ArcMap, not ArcGIS Pro
- Working knowledge of GIS concepts: layers, projections, attribute tables and common geoprocessing tools
- Basic Python - variables, loops and functions; you do not need to be a programmer
- A task of your own you would like to automate - the scripts are easiest to learn against real work
Description
Automate the ArcGIS work you currently do by hand.
If you use ArcGIS regularly, you know how much of the job is repetition: the same buffer, the same clip, the same export, run again on next month's data. ArcPy is Esri's Python library for making that work run itself, and this course is a focused, practical introduction to it.
You will start with the ArcPy environment and the Python window, then move through vector workflows - selections, buffers, overlays, clipping and data extraction - before working with raster data and map algebra. Two extended examples take you through real analysis: calculating NDVI from Landsat 8 imagery, and building a Land Surface Temperature workflow as a custom ArcPy toolbox you can reuse.
What you will be able to do
Write, modify and debug ArcPy scripts with confidence
Batch-process many layers instead of repeating tools one file at a time
Derive NDVI and LST from Landsat imagery
Package your scripts as ArcPy toolboxes your colleagues can run too
What you get
Hands-on examples built on real Landsat imagery
A quiz after every section to check your understanding
Reusable toolboxes you can adapt to your own projects
Before you enrol - please read
The lectures are demonstrated in ArcMap, not ArcGIS Pro. The ArcPy scripting itself - cursors, geoprocessing calls, raster handling, toolbox creation - carries over to ArcGIS Pro, but the interface you see on screen will be ArcMap, and a few map-document functions differ between the two. Please take that into account before enrolling.
This is also an intermediate course. You should already be comfortable with GIS concepts and know basic Python - variables, loops and functions. You do not need any previous ArcPy experience, and you will need access to ArcGIS on a Windows PC.
Taught by Dr. Azad Rasul, a geospatial data scientist and Assistant Professor, with over 150,000 students enrolled across his Udemy courses.
Enrol now and turn your repetitive ArcGIS tasks into scripts that run themselves.
Who this course is for:
- GIS professionals who run the same geoprocessing steps by hand and want to automate them with Python
- Python developers who want to apply their existing skills to spatial data and ArcGIS
- Environmental scientists working with satellite imagery for monitoring, vegetation and temperature analysis
- Students and researchers who need repeatable ArcPy workflows for a thesis, paper or project
- ArcGIS users who have copied scripts before without really understanding what they were doing