Latest Contributions by ChrisPlano

A reclassify tool for vector data would be incredibly useful.  Essentially it would act as a way to cement symbology within the attribute table.  I recently came across the need to take median household income and categorize over 500 records (polygons) into quartiles.  You can easily do this using display symbology, but I wanted to create a field in the attribute table with values of 1, 2, 3, or 4 for each record to denote what quartile that particular record fell into based on the income value.  I wanted this data to be in the attribute table so I could perform further geoprocessing by choosing records by quartile classification.   To be most useful, this tool would leave the original field data intact and create a new field with the new values.  For my needs, the ability to break the data into ranges is important.  I was able to get the result I wanted by using the symbology aspect of the Properties for my layer to determine where the quartile breaks should be, jot them down, and then use a python script to calculate a new field.  I told the GIS to take particular ranges of data (quartiles) and assign those records appropriate values (1, 2, 3, 4).  This works, but it is tedious and time-consuming.  If a geogprocessing tool could do the same thing, it would make things much more efficient.   ... View more

I am working with a polygon layer and need to classify three different fields by quartile based on the value for each record.  My field values range from integers to very long decimal numbers.  Essentially what I want to do is create a new, corresponding field for each of the three existing fields.  Each record in the new field will have the values 1, 2, 3, or 4 to indicate the quartile in which the existing value fell. Thanks for any suggestions! ... View more

I am attempting to get demographic data attached to census blocks into a layer of transportation analysis zones (TAZs) which are also polygons.  I need to move things like total population to the TAZs because it doesn't exist there and they are my primary unit of analysis.  The issue here is that a) the blocks are smaller than the TAZs so there are many blocks contained within one TAZ and b) the census block and TAZ boundaries do not line up (are off by maybe 12-35 meters).  What is the best way to aggregate the census data from many blocks into one TAZ while not having to deal with slivers and endless editing?  Thanks for any and all help! ... View more