Build Raster Attribute Table (Data Management)

Summary

Create or update a table with information about the classes in your raster datasets. This is used primarily with discrete data.

Usage

• To delete an existing table and create a new one, check Overwrite (overwrite = "OVERWRITE" in Python). A new raster attribute table will be created, and the old one will be deleted.

• If you have an existing table and you do not check Overwrite, the table will be updated. No fields will be deleted, but the values in the table will be up to date.

• You cannot build a raster attribute table for a raster dataset that is a pixel type of 32-bit floating point.

• You can generate an attribute table for a multidimensional dataset. When using this tool on a multidimensional mosaic dataset or a multidimensional raster, the output table will contain the pixel count of each class in each slice. The Count_S0 field will contain the pixel count of each class in the first slice of the dataset. The Count_S1 field will contain the pixel count of each class in the second slice, and so on. The variables must contain categorical data such as land cover.

Parameters

Dialog

Label	Explanation	Data Type
Input Raster	The input raster dataset to which a table will be added. This tool will not run if the pixel type is floating point or double precision.	Raster Layer
Overwrite (Optional)	Specifies whether the existing table will be overwritten. None —The existing raster attribute table will not be overwritten, and any edits will be appended to the current table. This is the default. Overwrite —The existing raster attribute table will be overwritten and a new raster attribute table will be created.	Boolean

Derived Output

Label	Explanation	Data Type
Updated Input Raster	The output raster dataset.	Raster Layer

Python

arcpy.management.BuildRasterAttributeTable(in_raster, {overwrite})

Name	Explanation	Data Type
in_raster	The input raster dataset to which a table will be added. This tool will not run if the pixel type is floating point or double precision.	Raster Layer
overwrite (Optional)	Specifies whether you want to overwrite the existing table. NONE —The existing raster attribute table will not be overwritten, and any edits will be appended to the current table. This is the default. Overwrite —The existing raster attribute table will be overwritten and a new raster attribute table will be created.	Boolean

Derived Output

Name	Explanation	Data Type
out_raster	The output raster dataset.	Raster Layer

Code sample

BuildRasterAttributeTable example (Python window)

This is a Python sample for the BuildRasterAttributeTable tool.

import arcpy
arcpy.BuildRasterAttributeTable_management("c:/data/image.tif", "Overwrite")

BuildRasterAttributeTable example 2 (stand-alone script)

This is a Python script sample for the BuildRasterAttributeTable tool.

##====================================
##Build Raster Attribute Table
##Usage: BuildRasterAttributeTable_management in_raster {NONE | Overwrite}
    
import arcpy
arcpy.env.workspace = "C:/Workspace"

##Build attribute table for single band raster dataset
##Overwrite the existing attribute table file
arcpy.BuildRasterAttributeTable_management("image.tif", "Overwrite")

Environments

This tool does not use any geoprocessing environments.

Licensing information

• Basic: Yes
• Standard: Yes
• Advanced: Yes