Buffer with Land Avoidance

Question

I have a problem with buffering and impact that land masses can have on distance.

We have SAR stations with vessels that have a 50nm action range to them. Now, Yes, we can draw a 50nm buffer around but we also wish for GIS to take into account (just like a vessel, in contrast to an airplane) that the 50nm range must go around land masses.

What ArcGIS tool could I use to fulfill this request?

I attached an image of my question.

Buffer with Land Avoidance.jpg

ArcSceneBilinearInterp.png

Clip_174.jpg

DavidDe_Rainville · Answer

Good afternoon,

Yes, Created a 50nm buffer around one of our SAR Stations. But then used the simpler ‘Clip’ to remove the buffer over the land mass.

What my question is that, as a vessel needs to divert around land mass, obviously, the range of 50nm for the buffer gets shorter. I want to know if ArcGIS has a way of doing that for you.

Right now, I take 10-15 paths with the ‘measurement tool’ and them simply remove the vertexes that fall outside of that range. A very time consuming task… as I have over 200 stations and ranges (with also intersect with each other) to do.

Thank you.

KevinHibma · Answer

From your screen shot it looks like the Buffer tool was used first with 50nm.

Then the erase tool was used to remove the land/shore boundary from the resulting buffer.