topic Re: Overlapping Polygons - 2 layers in Geoprocessing Questions

Overlapping Polygons - 2 layers

LindseyWinn — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 01:20:59 GMT

Hello!

I have two poylgon layers (census tracts and a list of 1,000 buffers) and am trying to get a list of all census tracts that intersect the polygons from the other layer.

I run the intersect tool, but come up with this issue: my polygon layer of 1,000 records sometimes overlap each other, so the intersect tool counts those overlaps as intersecting - does this make sense? So in one example I'm seeing, one polygon should overlap 12 census tracts, but the intersect tool returns a count of 48 overlaps because it's counting the other polygons that it's overlapping.

So basically, I need a list of which tracts intersect my polygon layer, but the intersect tool is returning too many records and is not accurate. Is this the correct tool I should be using?

Thank you!!

Re: Overlapping Polygons - 2 layers

DanPatterson_Retired — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 01:25:50 GMT

It isn't the correct tool since you can get multiple overlapping parts for two features that are intersecting. You can examine the Overlay toolset in the Analysis tools to see your options. Other options to consider would be a spatial join and/or a Select by Attribute... It is hard to make a firm recommendation unless you have images of what specifically you are using. You may be getting the 'right' answer, but just don't know how to filter out the 'good' from the 'right'

Re: Overlapping Polygons - 2 layers

LindseyWinn — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 01:46:41 GMT

Ahhh yes - a spatial join one to many did the trick! Thank you, Dan!