Create line (segment) along another line (coastline) based on nearest point (survey data)

SudoPro

Hello,

I am using ArcGIS Pro to display Survey123 data. The surveys are collecting information on the level of litter along a coastline - low/medium/high and length of contamination. 

The survey results are just points, however, I would like to convert them into line segments along the coastline. The length of the segment should depend on the length of contamination, i.e., if one survey at xyz N, xyz E, recorded high contamination for 2 km, the point would be mapped onto the coastline and a new line/segment would be created 2 km long, with the new point (based on survey location) being in the middle. 

I cannot use point to line as this doesn't consider the length. Also, the survey locations are a little off and do not sit directly on the line in the coastline layer.  

The attached photo shows the grey coastline and the survey data as points (colour based on level of contamination). The surveys continue to be collected, therefore, the most recent line segments will need to be on top of older data that may overlap. 

Can anyone help?

 

DanLee

Could the following steps work for you?

1.Run Near tool on the survey points with the coastline as the “Near Features” and the “Location” checkbox checked. You will get NEAR_X and NEAR_Y fields in your survey point table; they are the nearest location from the point to the coastline.

2.Run XY Table To Point tool using NEAR_X and NEAR_Y fields to get the pink point on the coastline (left image below). This output carries over input attributes, such as contamination level.

3.Run Buffer tool on the pink point using the contamination level value (if it’s a numerical) as buffer distance field.

4.Run Clip tool to clip the coastline by the buffer to get the thick red line (right image below). The red line may be close to what you wanted?  Notice that if the coastline inside the buffer is not straight, then the length of the red line may vary even they represent the same level of contamination.