ArcGIS Pro 3.5: New Features Elevate Collaboration - Automation and Analysis

ArcGIS Pro 3.5 is a GIS software update packed with enhancements that boost productivity for seasoned GIS professionals and beginners. This release focuses on performance and usability improvements while introducing significant new capabilities. Below, we explore the key ArcGIS Pro 3.5 features – from enhanced collaboration with portal projects to cutting-edge ModelBuilder enhancements – and highlight what’s new in various ArcGIS Pro extensions. These updates make collaborating, automating workflows, visualizing data, and integrating modern data formats in your GIS projects easier.

Portal Projects for Enhanced Collaboration

A standout feature in ArcGIS Pro 3.5 is portal projects, which enable seamless collaboration via ArcGIS Enterprise. You can now store entire .aprx projects directly in an ArcGIS Enterprise 11.4+ portal and access them from any machine with permissions. When you save your work, changes are synced to the portal item in real time. This means team members in a shared update group can simultaneously work on different parts of a project, with edits auto-synced and conflicts handled through versioning – dramatically improving collaborative mapping workflows. In short, portal projects turn your Enterprise portal into a project hub, eliminating the “email attachments” approach to sharing projects and ensuring everyone stays on the same page.

Extract Deed Dimensions with the COGO Reader

Manual entry of survey bearings and distances is now a thing of the past. ArcGIS Pro 3.5 introduces the new COGO Reader tool, which leverages OCR to extract deed calls automatically. Simply feed in scanned deeds or PDFs, and COGO Reader will parse out directions, distances, and curve parameters into a structured table for easy use in parcel mapping.

ArcGIS Pro’s COGO Reader uses optical character recognition (OCR) to scan deed documents and pull out coordinate geometry (COGO) dimensions automatically. In the example above, the tool has highlighted bearings and distances in a deed (left) and populated them into a parcel traverse grid (right) for mapping. This COGO Reader ArcGIS feature eliminates tedious manual typing of metes-and-bounds descriptions, saving time and reducing errors. If any values aren’t captured perfectly, the interface lets you review and edit the highlighted measurements before adding them to your map, ensuring accuracy and giving you confidence in your parcel data.

Custom Pane Sets for a Personalized UI

Every GIS user has a preferred interface layout, and ArcGIS Pro 3.5 makes it easier to switch views with custom pane sets. You can configure groups of docked panes (maps, tables, toolboxes, etc.) and save them as named pane sets, then toggle between these setups with one click. For example, you might have a “Editing” pane set (with Contents, Edit, and Attributes panes) and a “Analysis” pane set (with Geoprocessing and Catalog panes). Pane sets can be managed from the View tab or even assigned to keyboard shortcuts, so you can quickly bring up the right tools for the task at hand. This UI customization streamlines your workflow by keeping frequently used panels at your fingertips and eliminating the need to manually open/close panes as you switch tasks.

Utility Network Migration Made Easier

For utilities migrating from older network datasets or geometric networks, ArcGIS Pro 3.5 delivers new Utility Network migration tools. A built-in Utility Network Migration Wizard (powered by the Migrate to Utility Network geoprocessing tool) guides you through transferring existing network data into the ArcGIS Utility Network model. This wizard helps create necessary domain networks, maps old asset types to new ones, and preserves key attributes during schema mapping. The migration tool provides a quick path to get your electric, water, or telecom data into the Utility Network with minimal manual changes, so you can start taking advantage of advanced network tracing and analysis capabilities. In short, ArcGIS Pro 3.5 lowers the barrier to adopting the modern Utility Network by automating much of the heavy lifting in the migration process.

Semantic Search & Tool Suggestions in ModelBuilder

ArcGIS Pro’s ModelBuilder has long been a go-to for building geoprocessing workflows visually. In version 3.5, ModelBuilder becomes even smarter with new semantic search and Suggest Tool features. Semantic search allows you to use natural language queries to find the right geoprocessing tool. For example, you can type a question like “How do I loop through rows?” and ModelBuilder will interpret your intent and suggest relevant tools or model snippets that handle iteration. This conversational search makes discovering tools more intuitive, especially for newcomers who may not know the exact tool name.

Additionally, a Suggest Tool option now proactively recommends the next tool to add to your model based on the context of your existing workflows. If you’ve added certain analysis tools, ModelBuilder can suggest subsequent tools that logically follow, helping you build out your model faster. These ModelBuilder enhancements turn the visual workflow builder into an intelligent assistant, lowering the learning curve and speeding up model creation by guiding you with relevant suggestions.

Calculate Field Tool Improvements

Data management gets a boost in ArcGIS Pro 3.5 with an enhanced Calculate Field tool. This popular tool for updating attribute values has three notable upgrades:

• Unit Conversion Helper: A new Python helper function called Convert Spatial Units lets you easily convert area or length values from one unit to another (e.g., square feet to square meters) on the fly. This saves time when working across units by handling the math for you.

• Recent Expressions: The tool now offers a “Recent” button that stores your last used expressions. You can reapply a recent calculation without retyping the expression, which is especially handy for complex or frequently used formulas.

• Expanded SQL Support: Calculate Field now supports SQL expression mode for mobile geodatabases and file geodatabases. This added flexibility means you can use SQL syntax in more environments to calculate values, in addition to the existing Python and Arcade options.

Together, these updates make the Calculate Field tool more efficient and user-friendly, whether you’re standardizing units, repeating calculations, or leveraging SQL for attribute updates.

Symbology Enhancements (Vertices, Nodes & Histograms)

High-quality maps often require fine-grained control over symbology. ArcGIS Pro 3.5 introduces several symbology enhancements that help you inspect and refine your data representation:

• Vertices and Nodes Display: You can now visualize and customize key geometry vertices in your map editing view. A new Vertices and Nodes toggle highlights vertices, nodes, endpoints (dangles), pseudonodes, and other critical points on features. This makes it easier to spot alignment issues or topology errors. You have control over their appearance – size, transparency, and even the symbols used for each type of point – allowing you to adapt the display for quality control without permanently altering the data. By clearly seeing all vertex and node locations, you can ensure your features align and connect as intended.

The symbology histogram interface in ArcGIS Pro 3.5 has been revamped to give you deeper insight into your data distribution. In the image above, the Histogram tab for class breaks shows adjustable bins along with a count of features in each bin. You can zoom in/out on the histogram and change the number of bins to reveal more or fewer details. Hovering over a bar displays the exact feature count in that range, helping you identify patterns and outliers. These improvements make it easier to fine-tune class breaks (e.g., for choropleth maps) and achieve optimal symbol distribution. Combined with clearer labels and better keyboard accessibility, the updated histogram tools let you refine map symbology with confidence.

New ArcGIS Metadata Editor

Maintaining metadata is vital for data governance, and ArcGIS Pro 3.5 simplifies this with a new ArcGIS metadata editor. This is the same modern metadata editor used in ArcGIS Online and Enterprise, now integrated into Pro for a consistent experience. The new editor features a user-friendly interface for editing item descriptions, credits, extent, and other metadata elements, following the ArcGIS metadata style guidelines. It coexists with the classic ArcGIS Pro metadata editor, and you can switch between the two in your Options settings. Most metadata styles (e.g., FGDC, ISO) are supported in the new editor; however, note that if you use the minimalist “Item Description” style, you’ll need to use the classic editor for those items. Overall, the new metadata editor makes metadata entry and updates more convenient, ensuring your GIS data is well-documented across platforms.

Support for Parquet Files and NoSQL Databases

In response to the growing use of big data formats, ArcGIS Pro 3.5 adds support for Apache Parquet and certain NoSQL document databases:

• Apache Parquet (GeoParquet): You can now directly read spatial data stored in Parquet files (specifically, GeoParquet format) in ArcGIS Pro. Simply add a Parquet file to your map or scene, and Pro will create a local cache allowing you to view, query, and analyze the features just like any other layer. To optimize large datasets, a new CreateParquetCache ArcPy function is available to pre-cache Parquet files for faster display and analysis. This interoperability with Parquet gives GIS users more flexibility in working with cloud-native data formats and sharing data across different platforms.

• NoSQL Document Databases: ArcGIS Pro 3.5 breaks new ground by enabling direct connections to document-oriented NoSQL databases. In this release, you can connect to Elasticsearch and OpenSearch databases and work with their data in ArcGIS. The data is accessed via query layers, meaning you can query and visualize JSON document data (with key-value pair structures) as if it were a table in ArcGIS. This is especially useful for integrating real-time data or large text-based datasets stored in these systems. (At 3.5, this is primarily for viewing and querying; full support for publishing services from these connections is planned for the future.) By supporting document databases, ArcGIS Pro opens the door to new NoSQL and big data workflows, letting you bring unstructured data into your GIS analyses more easily.

ArcGIS Pro 3.5 Extension Updates

Beyond the core application, Esri’s ArcGIS Pro 3.5 brings noteworthy updates to many extensions. Here are the key extension highlights:

• ArcGIS Network Analyst: A new Waste Collection Solver is introduced to optimize municipal waste pickup routes. This solver finds efficient routes for fleets of garbage trucks, aiming to reduce travel time and maximize stops per trip (lowering fuel costs and improving service). Planners can use it via a new analysis layer or geoprocessing tool, or automate it with the arcpy.nax Python module.

• ArcGIS 3D Analyst: Among several new 3D tools, the highlight is Extract LOD2 Buildings, which generates detailed Level of Detail 2 building models from 2D footprints and elevation data. This tool automates 3D building reconstruction for city modeling and simulation. Other 3D Analyst enhancements include new tools for adding z-values to features and improved point cloud classification methods.

• ArcGIS Spatial Analyst: The Spatial Analyst extension gains a new Multiscale Surface Deviation tool for surface analysis, which computes how much a terrain varies from its mean elevation across multiple scales. Additionally, this release improves several Spatial Analyst functions – for example, distance and overlay tools run faster, and zonal analysis is more accurate now that tools like Zonal Statistics default to using the value raster’s resolution for calculations. These enhancements expand surface analysis capabilities and ensure more reliable raster analysis results.

• ArcGIS Data Reviewer: ArcGIS Pro 3.5 supercharges Data Reviewer with 28 new data quality checks for interactive validation. These checks (which include duplicate vertex detection, linear event gap/overlap detection, polygon sliver identification, improper z-value checks, and more) can be run through the Run Data Checks tool to flag errors in your data automatically. This greatly expands the out-of-the-box library of quality control rules. Furthermore, Data Reviewer now supports using the Valency check in attribute rule workflows, allowing utility GIS users to ensure proper connectivity (e.g. no pipe with too many connections) via automated rules. These additions make it easier to implement rigorous automated data quality reviews in your projects.

• ArcGIS Aviation: The aviation extension (for airports and aeronautical charting) delivers new tools for obstruction identification and improved charting. Notably, a UFC Heliport OIS tool generates Obstruction Identification Surfaces for helicopter pads per the latest military specifications. On the charting side, existing tools like FAA Part 13 surfaces have been enhanced (e.g., allowing selection of specific runways for analysis) to streamline chart production. These updates help aviation authorities create safer flight zone analyses and more efficient aeronautical charts.

• Image Management & Analysis (Imagery & Raster): Working with imagery in ArcGIS Pro is more powerful than ever. ArcGIS Pro 3.5 adds new GeoAI capabilities and sensor support. For example, a Detect Image Anomalies tool now lets you find unusual pixels in multiband or hyperspectral images, useful for change detection and intelligence analysis. There’s also a new tool to generate radiometrically terrain-corrected SAR imagery products from raw synthetic aperture radar data. Moreover, the deep learning tools in the Image Analyst toolbox have been upgraded – you’ll find support for new AI model architectures (like RTDETRv2), Grad-CAM explainability for image classification, and other tweaks to improve training and detection. Finally, Pro now supports an expanded range of sensors, including better handling of hyperspectral and SAR datasets, making it easier to manage and analyze complex imagery. These enhancements solidify ArcGIS Pro as a robust platform for advanced image analysis and remote sensing workflows.

• ArcGIS IPS (Indoor Positioning): The ArcGIS Indoors Positioning System extension gets smarter with adaptive indoor positioning capabilities. In 3.5, a new adaptive radio positioning feature uses Bluetooth beacon signal data (RSSI – Received Signal Strength Indicator) to improve location accuracy on devices with lower-quality sensors. This means better blue-dot positioning inside buildings for Android users. The IPS tools also saw other refinements to improve user experience and accuracy of indoor maps, making indoor wayfinding and asset tracking more reliable in this release.

• ArcGIS Bathymetry: Marine GIS analysts will appreciate updates to ArcGIS Bathymetry. Two new geoprocessing tools – Export Footprints and Export BIS Points – have been added to simplify bathymetric data management. These tools let you export your Bathymetric Information System (BIS) repository contents (footprint polygons and point datasets) for reporting or QC purposes. Additionally, the BIS database schema now includes a Depth field for better metadata, and the Add Data to BIS tools respect geographic transformations, allowing on-the-fly datum conversions when loading data. Together, these enhancements streamline the handling of bathymetric surveys and improve the accuracy of undersea terrain data management.

ArcGIS Pro 3.5 is a comprehensive update that advances collaboration, automation, and data integration in the GIS realm. From portal-based projects and OCR-powered COGO tools to semantic searches in ModelBuilder, Esri has packed this release with features that make GIS work more efficiently and enjoyably. We see a strong emphasis on user-requested improvements – whether it’s the convenience of pane sets and recent field calculations, or the deeper analytical power via new solvers, surface tools, and GeoAI integrations. This GIS software update ensures that ArcGIS Pro 3.5 meets the evolving needs of its user community, helping you create maps and perform analysis faster and with more insight than before. With its array of new capabilities, ArcGIS Pro 3.5 features truly offer “something for everyone,” enabling GIS professionals and newcomers alike to push the boundaries of their spatial projects. Happy mapping!

Sources: The information in this article is based on Esri’s official ArcGIS Pro 3.5 release notes and blogs, including ArcGIS Pro documentation and product team announcements, which detail the new features and enhancements in this latest version.