Raster Clipping – Part B - Using an irregular shape to clip a raster dataset

This is a follow up to last week’s post. Last week we talked about clipping raster datasets based on a single polygon or graphic.  This week we will look at clipping a raster dataset based on selected features within a feature class.

Sometimes you will have many polygons in a feature class and will want to use a specific set of features to clip your raster data. This can be done by creating a selection set within ArcMap.

First you will want to make a query or choose a selection set. In my example I will choose any feature that has an area of 5000 units or more. 

Now that we have the selection set, we will use the Clip (Data Management) geoprocessing tool, to clip out only the selected areas. Be sure to choose the polygon layer from the dropdown, and also to check the Input Features for Clipping Geometry checkbox.

After the tool has run, only the selected (blue areas) are clipped out. The other features that were not in our selection set will be excluded in the output.