Best proximity tool

[AvaFarouche]

Hi all,

Can you help me understand which is the best tool to use for a certain query - if there is one that matches my task?

I have a large point layer, w/~7,000 points. I want to figure out how many of these points are w/in .25 mile of each other.

So far, it seems like Summarize Nearby is the best option. I did a test using the subject layer as both the Input Features and the Input Summary Features. It basically creates a buffer of .25 miles around each point, and then creates a Count of Points field in the attribute table that tells me how many points are w/in that buffer. So, if there's more than 1 point in that field, I know that there is another point w/in the layer that is w/in .25 miles.

Is that what you would do? If not, what other tool would you use? I started out w/Group by Proximity, but that just left me a little confused. It created 8 groups, based on differing proximities, but it doesn't tell me how those groups are defined, or how far away the points are from each other in each group. I wasn't able to find anything really helpful about that tool online, or any training that addresses it specifically.

Thanks!!

[BobBooth1 · Accepted solution]

Summarize Nearby looks like the right tool for the job to me. Do the results look like what you're expecting?

You could also create a model to iteratively select features, select the features near them, get the count of features, copy that to a variable, and calculate that value into the selected feature's attribute table.  This would be fun, and a nice way to teach the concepts involved in the process, but more work for you, and probably a lot slower than using the core ArcGIS Pro tool.

[AvaFarouche]

Thank you!! Yes, I'm afraid I'm looking for the most time efficient and straightforward option. 😉 I really appreciate your confirmation that there's not something else I'm missing. The results do look like what I'd expect, but I need to be able to conduct some further analysis, so identifying specific locations helps as a starting point. There are a number of other tool options if I want to find proximities across different layers, but not if I want to look for proximities w/in one layer - at least, not that I can figure out. Thanks again!