Is there a way to pick the 10 closest points to a polygon feature and then determine the buffer area that would be required to capture these points?

Question

I have 2 different layers

1) a point file with latitude/longitude coordinates

2) shapefile feature class of polygons

I want to find 10 of the closest points to the polygons and then determine the buffer radius that would be required to encase all 10 points, but I do not even know if this is possible using ArcMap.

Thank you

Robert_LeClair · Answer

With ModelBuilder, certainly.

* Take the first GP tool, Generate Near Table, and add that to a model.
* The output of that table is used for your next GP tool, Summary Statistics with the input table being the output from the Generate Near Table tool, provide a name for the Output Table, set your statistic field to be Near_Dist with the Maximum Statistic Type and lastly use the In_FID for the case field.
* This output table is then used for a Join to your polygon table with the Input Table being your polygon, ObjectID for the Input Join Field, the Join Table is the output from the Summary Statistics GP tool and the Join Table Field being In_FID.  Now you have the distance field joined to the polygon feature class.
* Lastly, add the Buffer Tool using the Distance parameter set to Field and the Distance (value or field) being the Max_Near_Dist field.
* Run the model and now you have varied buffers.
* Tested this manually and I have varied buffers based upon the Max_Near_Dist field.

Hope this helps!

JessicaWarrack · Answer

Yes, that would definitely work.

Do you know if it would be possible to automate this process? I am looking at doing upwards of 100 polygon features and it would be very time consuming to find the buffer distance this way for all of them

Thank you for your time.

Robert_LeClair · Answer

Not an elegant way but you can use the Generate Near Table geoprocessing tool with your polygons as the Input Features, your points as the Near Features, uncheck the "find only closest feature (optional) parameter and change "maximum number of closest features (optional) to 10.  The output table will show the ID's of the 10 nearest points along with distance to the ID of a polygon.  The 10th point distance would then be your distance parameter for buffer.  Like I said, not exactly elegant but should work.