Windows with ArcGIS Pro or Server

Prerequisites

  • 64-bit x86 processor (ARM is not currently supported)

  • Microsoft Windows 10 or later, or Windows Server 2016 or later

  • ArcGIS Pro 3.2.2 or later, or ArcGIS Server 11.2 or later

Optional software

These are required to run certain parts of MGET. You can wait to install them later if desired. MGET will report detailed error messages when missing optional software is needed. Be sure to shut down all ArcGIS programs before installing them.

  • ArcGIS Spatial Analyst extension. This is required by a number of MGET tools produce rasters. If your ArcGIS license includes this extension but you did not install it, you can re-run the ArcGIS setup program to add it to your installation.

  • MATLAB Runtime R2024b (free) or the full version of MATLAB R2024b (not free). Either one is OK. These are required for front detection, larval dispersal simulation, and certain interpolation tools. You must install version R2024b; other versions will not work. Multiple versions can be installed at the same time, so if you use a different version of MATLAB for your own work, you can continue to do so, providing you install the R2024b Runtime for MGET’s use.

Windows with ArcGIS Pro installation instructions

MGET is a Python package. ArcGIS Pro utilizes conda to manage Python packages, which works best for projects that have been specifically packaged for deployment with conda. We have packaged MGET as the mget3 package on conda-forge. We recommend that ArcGIS Pro users install the conda-forge package rather than installing the corresponding mget3 package on the Python Package Index with pip.

Step 1. Install micromamba

Trying to use the conda that comes with ArcGIS Pro to install MGET is problematic. Pro 3.2 and 3.3 shipped with conda 4.14.0, which gets stuck forever at the message “Solving environment” (for more, see the article introduction of the libmamba solver). Pro 3.4 shipped with an updated version of conda, but it contains a buggy dependency checker that cannot install MGET (see issue #18.) Pro 3.5’s version of conda does work but still requires 10 minutes or more during “Solving environment”.

You can work around these problems by using micromamba instead. Micromamba is a stand-alone, drop-in replacement for conda. Installing it does not make any changes to your conda installation.

To install micromamba:

  1. Start Windows PowerShell.

  2. Open micromamba Automatic installation in your browser and copy the Windows PowerShell installation expression. It begins with Invoke-Expression.

  3. Paste that into PowerShell and run it. If are asked “Do you want to initialize micromamba for the shell activate command?”, enter n unless you know what it means and want to do it.

  4. Close PowerShell.

Step 2. Clone the arcgispro-py3 environment

We strongly advise you not to install MGET or its dependencies into the default arcgispro-py3 environment that ArcGIS Pro creates when it installs. Instead:

  1. Follow ESRI’s instructions to clone arcgispro-py3 to a new environment. In these instructions, we’ll assume your copy is called arcgispro-py3-mget. Alternatively, if you already have another environment you wish to use, you can skip this step.

  2. Activate the new environment you created, or the existing one you want to use.

Step 3. Install MGET

  1. Click Start, open the ArcGIS folder, and start the Python Command Prompt. It should show your desired environment as part of the command prompt, similar to this:

    (arcgispro-py3-mget) C:\Users\Jason\AppData\Local\ESRI\conda\envs\arcgispro-py3-mget>

  2. Run the following command to install the packages. Replace micromamba with conda if you did not install micromamba in step 1 and want to try the conda that comes with ArcGIS Pro (we don’t recommend that):

    micromamba install --channel esri --channel conda-forge mget3

    Review the changes that micromamba proposes if you like, then press Enter to approve them and install MGET. If you have any questions, please post them to the discussion forum.

Step 4. Add the MGET toolbox to ArcGIS Pro

To use MGET’s geoprocessing tools from ArcGIS Pro, you need to add the toolbox to an ArcGIS Pro project:

  1. Select the Insert ribbon and find the Toolbox drop-down menu. Then select Add Toolbox:

_images/ArcProAddToolbox1.png

  1. In the Add Toolbox dialog box, navigate to the folder that contains your Python environment. Typically this is a subfolder of the C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ESRI\conda\envs folder. In the example below, the environment subfolder is named arcgispro-py3-mget. Inside that subfolder, navigate to Lib\site-packages\GeoEco\ArcGISToolbox. Select the file Marine Geospatial Ecology Tools.tbx and click OK:

_images/ArcProAddToolbox2.png

  1. Now you can access the toolbox from the Geoprocessing pane. After opening the Geoprocessing pane, click on Toolboxes and then drill into the toolbox to find tools of interest. Alternatively, you can search for tools by name in the Find Tools box:

_images/ArcProAddToolbox3.png

Click here for some examples of using MGET’s geoprocessing tools.

Uninstalling MGET

MGET may be uninstalled like any other conda package:

  1. Close all ArcGIS programs.

  2. If necessary, activate the environment you want to uninstall MGET from. If that environment is already activated, you can skip this step.

  3. Click Start, open the ArcGIS folder, and start the Python Command Prompt. It should show your desired environment as part of the command prompt, similar to this:

    (arcgispro-py3-mget) C:\Users\Jason\AppData\Local\ESRI\conda\envs\arcgispro-py3-mget>

  4. Run the following command to uninstall MGET. Replace micromamba with conda if you did not install micromamba in Step 1:

    micromamba remove --yes mget3

Alternatively, if you no longer need the conda environment, you can just delete the environment. There is no need to uninstall MGET from it first.

Windows with ArcGIS Server installation instructions

In principle, MGET should work on ArcGIS Server so long as the prerequisite Python packages have been installed, as described above in the Windows with ArcGIS Pro installation instructions. ESRI provides some guidance on installing Python packages on ArcGIS Server for Windows in this article But we have not tested this yet so we don’t know for sure. We’ll update this documentation once we have the opportunity to try it.