Adding facilities to the facility layer

[LineJensen]

Hi
Im very new to ArcGIS and especially to Network analyst.
My aim is to calculate the driving distance between 442 points to one location. I???m planning to use Network Analyst to do so, more specifically the ???closest facility???. However, my problem arise very fast. I???m able to create a ???new closest facility???. My problem is that now my ???facilities??? are empty and I can???t seem to get my 442 points ???copied??? into the facility layer. So after trying to solve this (I???m sure) very simple problem for to long now, I turn to the professionals ??
Thank you very much in advance

Line Jensen

[AlexeyTereshenkov]

Hi Line,

The basic workflow for working with closest facilities is to add a network dataset to ArcMap and create a New Closest Facility layer via the Network Analyst toolbar.

Then you have to import your facilities and incidents from the Network Analyst window which can be activated from the Network Analyst toolbar.

Here is the Help page:
http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/Closest_facility_analysis/00470000004n...

So, what exactly is going wrong in your case?

[LineJensen]

Thank you very much for your help.
Embarrassingly, it was me who wasn�??t aware that I should �??activate�?� the network analyst window. Once this came to my attention it was clear what needed to be done (I told you I was new at this 🙂 )
But I loaded my 442 facilities into the facility layer. However, it took my computer 3 hours to copy the cases in this facility-layer. Is this normal? (Because then I�??m in trouble since I also have to solve distance for populations of 13.000 facilities �?? NOTE: I do not have an exceptionally slow computer, nor a very quick one). However, after the 3 hours the facilities was in the right layer and I added an incidence. When asking network analyst to solve the distance between each 442 points and my incidence around 20 routs could not be calculated (otherwise the routes seemed correct). Since I�??m not that familiar with Network Analyst I�??m not sure whether it is normal that few routs can not be calculated? (my facilities is calculated based on geographical coordinates (ETRS_1989_UTM_Zone_32N)).
Thank you very much for your help

Line

[JaySandhu]

If it takes a long time to load the facility locations, it could be due to a bad or missing spatial index on your street data.
What is the source of your network dataset? Did you make it yourself? You should bring up the properties of your streets in ArcCatalog and see if the spatial index is missing or recreate it.

Jay Sandhu

[LineJensen]

Hi Jay
Thanks for your reply. I did make my Network Dataset myself based on a national dataset of streets which my department has bought for my project.
When I create the Network Dataset i get 3 "new" layers (one "regular" street layer (a shapefile), one "junctions" and one "turn" layer). In the "regular" street layer (the layer which is applied in the Arcmap) the opportunities do not include anything regarding "spatial index". The properties of the "junctions" layer do have a spatial index, however this is not "turned on" - so it is not possible for me to update this. the last layer which was created in the Network Dataset (the turn-layer) also have a properties of "spatial index" and here I�??m able to click an "update button". However, this does not help - it still takes around 3 hours for the 442 facilities to be loaded.

Don�??t know if you have any ideas (my data manager told me that it looks like I�??m not using all my computer RAM - so its not because my computer is to slow (I think)

Best regards Line
PS sorry for my GIS language - I have not taken any GIS courses so I�??m not familiar with many of the phrases (hope you understand what I mean) 🙂

[LineJensen]

Never mind regarding the spatial index update... i found out that I should do the update the spatial index on my "original" street datafile (the one I've created my Network dataset from) and not in the Network Dataset... Just if anyone else is a bit lost in this and has the same problem

[JaySandhu]

Glad you figured out that you needed to create the spatial index on the streets feature class.
If you are new to GIS, I will suggest that you explore our web sites as they have lots of training, podcasts, etc
Try:
http://www.esri.com/news/podcasts/index.html
or
http://training.esri.com/gateway/index.cfm?fa=trainingOptions.gateway

Good luck,
Jay Sandhu