topic Re: Average distance from input polygons to multiple points in Esri Tutorials Questions

Average distance from input polygons to multiple points

Rens_Vermeltfoort — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 10:54:19 GMT

Hello,

I am working with a polygon file and want to get an average distance value to multiple points for each polygon. Conceptually I have tried multiple things to tackle this problem, such as the Multiple Ring Buffer tool, the Point and Kernel Density tools, and the Near and Generate Near Table tools. None of these approaches gave the appropriate result. The Generate Near Table tool supposedly would be able to take into account multiple distances if the Find only closest feature (optional) is unchecked. Though still only one distance per polygon was generated in the table:

The Near tool would give suboptimal results if it was working properly, though with this tool I have some issues as well. As you can see in the screendump below some polygons that are positively more isolated have receive lower distance values than polygons that are closer to the points:

Do any of you know what I am doing wrong with both Near tools or do you know a better way to tackle this problem?

Greetings Rens

Re: Average distance from input polygons to multiple points

DanPatterson_Retired — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 11:09:11 GMT

From your table, what is the association between the points and the polygons and the colors in the map? maybe a few labels for both especially since you have 484 records and the table only shows 27 records

Re: Average distance from input polygons to multiple points

Rens_Vermeltfoort — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 11:14:40 GMT

There are 484 original polygons and 25 points, you can scroll down the table untill the 484th record and only get one distance (NEAR_DIST) and thus only get one distance for each original polygon (which is the same which was generated with the Near tool.

Re: Average distance from input polygons to multiple points

DanPatterson_Retired — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 11:23:37 GMT

with Near As Table you can specify multiple n-closest by setting 'closest' to All and giving a number to 'closest_count'

Generate Near Table—Help | ArcGIS Desktop

assuming that is what you want.

Re: Average distance from input polygons to multiple points

Rens_Vermeltfoort — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 14:33:00 GMT

Solved it by splitting my input point feature class in seperate point feature class files, which were than all added as the near input files. A bit cumbersome, bit it worked . Thank you all for your input!