Extract and Extraction Tool in ArcGIS

The Extract Tool in ArcGIS is part of the Data Management or Spatial Analyst toolsets.

The Extract tools let you select features and attributes in a feature class or table based on a query or spatial extraction. The output features and attributes are stored in a feature class or table.

ArcGIS Extract Tools

There are four types of extraction tools available in ArcGIS:

1. Clip
2. Select
3. Split
4. Table Select

Clip

Extracts input features that overlay the clip features.

Use this tool to cut out a piece of one feature class using one or more of the features in another feature class as a cookie cutter. This is particularly useful for creating a new feature class—also referred to as study area or area of interest (AOI)—that contains a geographic subset of the features in another, larger feature class.

Select

Extracts features from an input feature class or input feature layer, typically using a select or SQL (Structured Query Language) expression and stores them in an output feature class.

Split

Splitting the Input Features creates a subset of multiple output feature classes.The Split Field’s unique values form the names of the output feature classes.

Table Select

Selects table records matching a SQL expression and writes them to an output table.

ArcGIS Extraction Tools

The Extraction tools allow you to extract a subset of cells from a raster by either the cells attributes or their spatial location. You can also obtain the cell values for specific locations as an attribute in a point feature class or as a table.

The following table lists the available Extraction tools;