Cluster Analysis - geographic only

[PaulaMcNamara]

Hi there,  I would like to find my hotspots or clusters of a point layer.
What would be the best way to proceed?  I don't have a field that i need to use, this is purely geographic dispersement, so all the tools that require a field for teh analysis aren't going to work.
I'm not sure how to find my high clusters of point locations.
When i have got results out, it's creating large rings covering too big areas, it's covering all the points and i need micro clusters within the larger clusters.

I'm currently trying a smaller cell size and search area in the density tool of spatial analyst to see if that will do it, but it seems that i end up with a raster with no ranges.

I can provide images if that helps with the question.

Paula

[LaurenRosenshein]

Hi Paula,

Even though your point data does not have an attribute associated with it that you would like to analyze, there are some techniques that you can use that will allow you to use the spatial statistics tools to run a hot spot analysis.  We have a great tutorial that you can download that will walk you through a hot spot analysis of 911 calls.  It should be very helpful because it walks through the workflow of aggregating the point data for use in tools that require a value field.  You might also find this video useful as it describes the importance of thinking through parameters like the search radius. 

There are also a ton of additional spatial statistics resources available at http://bit.ly/spatialstats.

Hope this helps.

Lauren Rosenshein
Geoprocessing Product Engineer