Near_analysis has planar method. Using Geodesic method gives very absurd results.

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10-06-2016 05:02 AM
KarunDayal
New Contributor

I have a point and a polygon. I had to draw the shortest distance between the point and polygon. I used near_analysis with planar method to find the shortest point on the nearest point on the polygon. Planar method gave results as expected. Geodesic method is returning extremely strange results. Then XYtoLineManagement (which has Geodesic method as default) draws a straight line to the the nearest point on the polygon. I am very confused here. Its very unfortunate that arc doesnt provide Planar method in all tools. My area of work is very small and planar method is more than sufficient. 

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5 Replies
DanPatterson_Retired
MVP Emeritus

Could you report some results so others can assess whether are absurd or not.  And provide information of the coordinate systems of the input data and the data frame... since they may all differ.

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KarunDayal
New Contributor

Sir,

Thanks for replying

I will explore the coordinate systems aspect and get back to you shortly.

Thankyou.

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DanPatterson_Retired
MVP Emeritus

any luck on finding out the coordinate information?

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KarunDayal
New Contributor

Sir,

I think it was indeed the coordinate system problem. I created a geodatabase of UTM zone44n projection. And randomly zoomed in and created the features that you see above. But I am still confused exactly what went wrong. 

Thankyou

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DanPatterson_Retired
MVP Emeritus

when you are trying to create features that aren't in the coordinate system expected, I suspect you got the default, perhaps the coordinate system of the data frame rather than of another featureclass, hence the geometry would be totally different.  That's why I wanted to see what you had specified for all to confirm what happened rather than go by past experience