I’m currently teaching a graduate level class in Crime Mapping using ArcGIS. I make my own tutorials from week to week, and basically sneak in generic pro-tips for using the software while students are doing other regular types of analyses. I can only subject my students to so much though – but here is one I have found useful, adding a regularly used button to a toolbar.

I use CrimeStat to generate kernel densities from point data, so as of V10 whenever I want to make a classified raster map I get this error:

V9 it used to just do this for you automatically :(.

I typically make classified raster maps simply because I think they look nicer than continous ones. My continuous ones always look fuzzy, whereas having discrete cuts you can focus attention on particular hot spot areas. It is arbitrary for sure – but that is something we need to learn to live with when making maps.

So in class I had students open ArcToolBox, navigate down the tree, and find the Calculate Statistics tool for rasters. In my personal set up though I do this enough that I added the button to my toolbar. So first, go to the file menu and in customize -> toolbars make sure you have the spatial analyst toolbar selected. (Here is a kernel density grd file to follow along with if you want.)

Now in the right hand most edge of the new spatial analyst toolbar, left click on the little downward pointing arrow and select Customize. (Sorry, my toolbar is a bit crowded!)

In the customize window that pops up, select the Commands tab. Now in this window you can select any particular command and then drag it onto any toolbar. Here I go to Data Management in the left hand categories area, and then scroll down till I find the Calculate Statistics button.

Then I left click on the Calculate Statistics row, hold down the mousebutton, and drag it to my toolbar.

Now you are done, and ArcGIS saves this button on the toolbar when making future maps. You can change the icon if you want, but there are tooltips when hovering over the icon (so even if you have multiple hammers on your toolbars it only takes a second to browse between them).