Summarize Within tool

Question

I am using ArcGIS Pro 2.8.2 and the Summary Within Tool doesn't work properly. For example, I can not get the counts of points within polygons (unit of analysis). I am using Analysis Summarize Within tool.

Also when summarizing an attribute (for example, population), it doesn't give me the correct calculated summary. In my case, if there are 5 intersecting polygons, it is expected that the population of the 5 polygons should be summed up but it gives me a very different value which is not correct and I can't figure out how it has been calculated.

In order t solve the issue, do I need to update the software? I can also see this new GeoAnalytics Summarize Within tool. Is this the replacement of the older Analysis Summarize Within tool? I tried the GA version but it doesn't work with point data.

I have been using this tool for a while and never had a problem but for some unknown reasons it doesn't work as it did before. I do appreciate it if someone can help me to figure out the issue.

Thank you!

RenM000 · Answer

How do you know when to use which tool? How will the results differ?

NoahSlocum · Answer

Hello @minanasa_mn, thanks for your questions! Can you clarify what you mean when you say "I can not get the counts of points within polygons" - is the tool failing, or are you not getting the result that you would expect?

The behavior you observed for polygons is expected, the population values are proportioned by the area of the polygon that intersects, so it is not a simple summation of the population of the 5 polygons. For a more detailed explanation check out this post that @DanPatterson  shared https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-questions/arcgis-pro-summarize-within/td-p/364406

The GeoAnalytics Summarize Within tool is not a replacement of the Analysis Summarize Within tool, it is a separate tool with similar functionality that uses a distributed implementation ideal for handling larger datasets. The Analysis tool is available if you have a Basic, Standard, or Advanced license for ArcGIS Pro while the GeoAnalytics Desktop toolbox requires an Advanced license. See this overview of the GeoAnalytics Desktop toolbox for more details.

Both the GeoAnalytics and Analysis Summarize Within tools should work with points, so please share any errors you're seeing and we can try to diagnose the issue. If you are only trying to summarize points into polygons, I would also recommend trying the Aggregate Points tool, which is focused on point feature summarization.

Best regards,
Noah

danretired · Answer

could be related, see this and the original discussion

BUG-000122455: The Summarize Within tool gives incorrect results wh.. (esri.com)

Solved: Arcgis Pro - Summarize Within - Esri Community