topic Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point in ArcGIS Online Questions

Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

PeterDalrymple — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 16:01:37 GMT

Hello!

I have a web map with a point layer representing manholes and a point layer representing addresses. I am attempting to create an Arcade expression that will display the nearest address point in the popup of a selected manhole. I'm trying to do this by creating a buffer around the selected manhole, calculating the distance of each address point intersecting the buffer, and returning the address of the nearest address point. No matter how I format the code below (I won't get into everything that I've tried), I do get one address point, but it is neither the nearest or the farthest manhole. I have tried sorting, ordering, and using compare functions for the intersecting address points, but I don't seem to have access to the distance value in order to grab the closest one. Can anyone tell me if I'm going about this the right way or if this is even possible? Thanks in advance!!!

var searchDist = 200;
var addresses = Intersects(FeatureSetById($map, "Primary_Address_3482"), Buffer( $feature, searchDist, "feet"));
var cnt = Count(addresses)
Console("Total Number of addresses within buffer: " + cnt);
var nearestaddress;
for (var f in addresses){
 var addressDist = Round(Distance(f, $feature, "feet"),2);
 Console(f.FULL_ADDR + ": " + " " + addressDist)
}

f.FULL_ADDR

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

XanderBakker — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 06:33:25 GMT

Hi peter.dalrymple ,

You are close. The distances are correctly reported to the console. The only thing you need is to get the nearest.

Try this:

var searchDist = 200;
var addresses = Intersects(FeatureSetById($map, "Primary_Address_3482"), Buffer( $feature, searchDist, "feet"));
var cnt = Count(addresses)
Console("Total Number of addresses within buffer: " + cnt);
var nearestaddress;
var min_dist = 250;
for (var f in addresses){
 var addressDist = Round(Distance(f, $feature, "feet"),2);
 if (addressDist < min_dist) {
     nearestaddress = f.FULL_ADDR;
     min_dist = addressDist;
 }
 Console(f.FULL_ADDR + ": " + " " + addressDist);
}

return nearestaddress;‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

PeterDalrymple — Fri, 11 Oct 2019 19:23:50 GMT

Thanks Xander Bakker‌, that works great! I was struggling with that last bit.

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

XanderBakker — Fri, 11 Oct 2019 19:37:59 GMT

Hi peter.dalrymple ,

I'm glad it worked. If you have any doubt, please let me know and I will provide some more explanation.

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

PeterDalrymple — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 18:01:30 GMT

Hi Xander Bakker‌,

Do you have any suggestions as to how I might iterate the addresses chain, so that it grows the buffer if the cnt is less than 1? I've tried a couple of loops and if then statements, but the logic seems circular. Is this possible? Are there any examples you know of that could serve as a guide?

Thanks!

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

NaomiBegg2 — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 09:09:27 GMT

Hi Xander Bakker‌ I'm trying to do this where it is looking within the same feature class to find the closest group next to it. I've made the silly mistake of using the above code however now it just references itself as being the nearest (which makes sense!) most of the time the distances are 0 (again good), but sometimes they aren't (which is weird).

How do I add a filter into the script so that it jumps over its own feature and only looks at the others within that layer?

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

XanderBakker — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 06:33:28 GMT

Hi Peter Dalrymple ,

You can do that, but this could have a performance hit if you would have to do multiple buffers and intersects to get a result. Have you tried making the search distance larger instead?

Here is something you could try, although I haven't tested it and don't recommend doing this:

var searchDist = 200;
var maxloops = 10;
var factor = 2;

for (var i in maxloops) {
    var addresses = Intersects(FeatureSetById($map, "Primary_Address_3482"), Buffer( $feature, searchDist, "feet"));
    var cnt = Count(addresses)
    if (cnt > 0) {
        Console("Total Number of addresses within buffer: " + cnt);
        var nearestaddress;
        var min_dist = searchDist * 2;
        for (var f in addresses){
            var addressDist = Round(Distance(f, $feature, "feet"),2);
            if (addressDist < min_dist) {
                nearestaddress = f.FULL_ADDR;
                min_dist = addressDist;
            }
        Console(f.FULL_ADDR + ": " + " " + addressDist);
        }
        return nearestaddress;    
    }
    searchDist = searchDist * factor;
}

return "no results...";
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Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

XanderBakker — Thu, 07 Nov 2019 02:23:33 GMT

Hi njbegg ,

Can you share the expression that you have at this moment?

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

NaomiBegg2 — Thu, 07 Nov 2019 02:33:17 GMT

var searchDist = 150;
var IntersectClose = Intersects(Buffer($feature, 150, 'kilometers'), FeatureSetByName($map,"Girls Brigade groups - Stats"));
var cnt = Count(IntersectClose)
Console("Total Number of addresses within buffer: " + cnt);
var nearestGroup;
var min_dist = 200;
for (var f in IntersectClose){
var groupDist = Round(Distance(f, $feature, "kilometers"),2)
if (groupDist < min_dist) {
nearestGroup = f.USER_Group_Name;
min_dist = groupDist;
}
Console(f.USER_Group_Name + ": " + " " + groupDist)
}
return "Closest group is " + nearestGroup + ", " + groupDist + "km away."

I'm thinking that I need to out a second if statement similar to below.

if (groupDist < min_dist) && a.USER_Group_Name =! f.USER_Group_Name {

However how do I distinguished between the first group name and the second that appears within the for loop? Do I need to declare it as another var at the start?

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

XanderBakker — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 06:33:30 GMT

Hi Naomi Begg ,

I think you could do something like this (see below). In this case you read out the object ID and only allow a result in case it is a different object ID. You could also filter the feature set by excluding this object id.

var currentOID = $feature.OBJECTID; // assumig you have an object ID field
var searchDist = 150;
var IntersectClose = Intersects(Buffer($feature, 150, 'kilometers'), FeatureSetByName($map,"Girls Brigade groups - Stats"));
var cnt = Count(IntersectClose)
Console("Total Number of addresses within buffer: " + cnt);

if (cnt > 0) {
    var nearestGroup;
    var min_dist = searchDist + 1;
    for (var f in IntersectClose) {
        if (f.OBJECTID != currentOID) {
            var groupDist = Round(Distance(f, $feature, "kilometers"),2)
            if (groupDist < min_dist) {
                nearestGroup = f.USER_Group_Name;
                min_dist = groupDist;
            }
        Console(f.USER_Group_Name + ": " + " " + groupDist)
        }
    }
    return "Closest group is " + nearestGroup + ", " + groupDist + "km away."        
} else {
    // no features found in buffer
    return "No closest group found..."
}


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Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

PeterDalrymple — Fri, 08 Nov 2019 19:47:05 GMT

Thanks Xander Bakker‌,

That didn't work, but I'm not sure I could tell you exactly why. Popup wants to return "no results..." even when there are intersecting features. I don't think I'll be going that route anyway, since the address result losses relevance once it's that far away. Returning a coordinate or a message is probably more effective in that case.

Either way, it's informative to see how you would nest that logic. I haven't seen a lot of examples like that, so thank you!

Based upon your comments, I assume that performing multiple buffers and intersects is still less performant than returning and calculating distance for a 100-200 (or even 1000) feature list?

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

XanderBakker — Fri, 08 Nov 2019 22:58:29 GMT

Hi peter.dalrymple ,

I thinks so. Basically since it will make multiple requests to the server and that will probably result in a lower performance. Too bad to hear that it doesn't work, but I agree, it would probably not be the way to go.

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

NaomiBegg1 — Sat, 09 Nov 2019 04:47:19 GMT

Thanks, Xander Bakker‌, I've got the query pulling out the correct group now. However, the distance it is returning is not reliable. I am getting two different results for groups that are right next to each other whereas they should return the same distance, and I am getting distances in the 100s when really they are 1km away.

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

XanderBakker — Sat, 09 Nov 2019 20:50:52 GMT

Hi Naomi Begg , there is a note about the accuracy of the geometries and subsequent analysis on them, related to the scale in which you retrieve the geometry. However, this does not explain the differences that you are seeing. You could try using "DistanceGeodetic", but I doubt that it will solve this issue.

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

ScottStepro1 — Mon, 23 May 2022 17:02:51 GMT

found this code today Xander... very few changes needed to make it work for me too. **bleep** yes and thank you...

Here is mine, you can easily see how few changes were needed.

var searchDist = 200;
var addresses = Intersects(FeatureSetById($map, /* Jefferson County KY Address Points */ "OpenDataAddresses_7579"), Buffer($feature, searchDist, "feet"));
var cnt = Count(addresses)
Console("Total addresses within Buffer" + cnt);

var nearestaddress;
var min_dist = 250;
for (var f in addresses){
var addressDist = Round(Distance(f, $feature, "feet"),2);
if (addressDist < min_dist) {
nearestaddress = f.FULL_ADDRESS;
min_dist = addressDist;
}
Console(f.FULL_ADDRESS + ": " + " " + addressDist);
}

return nearestaddress;

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

OliverSandoval_p — Mon, 23 May 2022 18:53:12 GMT

Hi @XanderBakker ,

Thank you for your help. I have tried using your code and ran into several weird issues. When I set min_dist to a value the result I get is null. This has lead me to set it to infinity as shown in this esri resource Find nearest features using Arcade expressions in a popup | ArcGIS API for JavaScript 3.40 | ArcGIS Developer .

When I set to infinity I get a result but it is often not the nearest address distance wise. And it changes if I use a higher search distance which doesn't make sense. I also get large numbers for the address distances.

The $feature is being hosted in arcgisonline while the address points layer is a registered feature layer.

Do you have an idea as to what may be going wrong with my version? Thank you for your help again! I have attached some photos for reference

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

XanderBakker — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 17:41:13 GMT

Hi @OliverSandoval_p ,

Sorry for the delay, but when I look at the distances that you get I wonder how big your feature is... Distances of 65M feet are about halfway around the globe.

If I use Infinity or the searchDist as the initial minimum distance it will return the same result:

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

OliverSandoval_p — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 23:45:25 GMT

hi @XanderBakker ,

The issue ended up being the web map's web Mercator projection while the hosted feature layers were in NAD 1983. I had to reprojection the data needed because end users needed to have more than one basemap and I didn't have time to create a custom basemap.

Thank you for your reply!

Best,

Oliver

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

ShannonJ — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 13:04:25 GMT

Just wanted to say that I was really happy to come across this expression as it did exactly what I wanted. I had to make two changes to get it to run so I wanted to share them in case others are having the same issues (this may be due to my lack of experience with arcade, but it worked!).

1. I had to change from featuresetbyid to featuresetbyname

2. update the count function to reference the layer name from from var addresses : var cnt = Count(addresses) to var cnt = Count("Primary_Address_3482")

My successful expression:

var searchDist = 25;

var addresses = Intersects(FeatureSetByName($map, "ADDRESS_gdb"), Buffer( $feature, searchDist, "meters"));

var cnt = Count("ADDRESS_gdb");

Console("Total Number of addresses within buffer: " + cnt);

var nearestaddress;

var min_dist = 35;

for (var f in addresses){

var addressDist = Round(Distance(f, $feature, "meters"),1);

if (addressDist < min_dist) {

nearestaddress = f.ADDRESS;

min_dist = addressDist;

}

Console(f.ADDRESS + ": " + " " + addressDist);

}

return nearestaddress;

Re: Using Arcade to Find the Nearest Address Point

DerekBernard — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 16:52:43 GMT

Thank you!!!