topic How do I choose the most centally located in ArcGIS Spatial Analyst Questions

How do I choose the most centally located

BrandonAdcock1 — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 16:48:00 GMT

I have a set of offices and a set of inspection locations. I would like to equally distribute the inspections to the closest (as the crow flies) field office. (i.e. 4 offices, so each one is assigned the 1/4 of the inspections closest to it). Is there a way to do this that doesn't involve too much hassle?

Thank you in advance.

Re: How do I choose the most centally located

DanPatterson_Retired — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 17:58:01 GMT

To divide space equally in raster world, just try

Euclidean Allocation

with the usual caveat of specifying a reasonable cell size and extend and using a projected coordinate system and saving the resultant raster to a folder without a space or other weird characters, with a *.tiff extension plus anything else I have omitted.

Re: How do I choose the most centally located

BrandonAdcock1 — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 18:08:32 GMT

Thank you. My data is currently stored as points for both the inspection locations and offices. Not sure that a raster could express the data, but maybe...

Re: How do I choose the most centally located

DanPatterson_Retired — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 18:13:03 GMT

Then the alternative is to produce a Voronoi Diagram (aka Thiessen Polygons) around your points... assuming you have an advanced license. orrrrr. the always free at any license level

Triangulation tools ....

There is always a hassle unless you have the correct license and software and don't need it for a while

Re: How do I choose the most centally located

curtvprice — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 19:25:21 GMT

You didn't see what software you were using. In ArcMap, if you right click your inspection sites, Joins and Relates, Join, by location to offices and pick nearest, you'll get the answer you want. Alternatively, you can use the Spatial Join tool (ArcMap or Pro) to do this - it's a bit more complicated, but it does work. None of these tools require more than a Basic license.

Finding the nearest feature—Help | ArcGIS Desktop

Spatial Join—Help | ArcGIS Desktop

Re: How do I choose the most centally located

BrandonAdcock1 — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 20:39:50 GMT

Thiessen Polygons are a cool analysis I didn't know was there. Thanks.

It doesn't take care of the component of making sure the inspections are equally allocated among the offices though.

Re: How do I choose the most centally located

BrandonAdcock1 — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 20:45:40 GMT

Thank you for the help.

I am using ArcMap, but have access to Pro as well.

This tells me the closest office, but does not allocate them equally. What it comes down to is I have one office with a bunch of inspections close to that office. I want to assign them to the second closest office and keep each of the offices with an equal number of inspections. That second part is the one I'm having trouble with.

Re: How do I choose the most centally located

DanPatterson_Retired — Fri, 03 Nov 2017 00:32:38 GMT

That is getting more complicated and may involve using the Near tools then parsing your preference/allocation list once one hub is filled.

Re: How do I choose the most centally located

curtvprice — Fri, 03 Nov 2017 01:50:19 GMT

I want to assign them to the second closest office and keep each of the offices with an equal number of inspections. That second part is the one I'm having trouble with.

Use the Point Distance tool and sort and select the output table.

Re: How do I choose the most centally located

BrandonAdcock1 — Fri, 03 Nov 2017 19:51:28 GMT

Thank you Curtis Price‌ and Dan Patterson‌ for the thoughts. I ended up using the Point Distance Tool and sorted the output table for the top 1/3 of facilities at each of the field offices. That looks to have gotten me what I needed. I was hoping for something more elegant and automated, but got the job done, so that's a win for me.