display multiple locations contained in one table row

[RosalindCrone]

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering if someone might be able to give me some quick pointers on what I think should be a fairly easy function to perform in ArcGIS.

I have a table which contains data about unique individuals in nineteenth-century Suffolk. There are multiple fields which contain location data because for each person I know where they were born, were they subsequently lived, and where they worked. Is it possible in ArcGIS to plot all of these locations on a map at the same time? And then is there a tool to draw a line between locations that feature in the same row of data? My goal, for example, is to show where a person lived and where they worked (as in travelled to work each day), and then finally to measure the distance between these points so as to arrive at an average distance for work travel.

I hope that makes sense!

Many thanks,

Rosalind.

[WolfgangEfferz]

Hi Rosalind,

perhaps I can offer You a solution for the first part of Your question. When You choose the Property-Label-Item of Your Feature, You can use VBA-Expressions to adress all fields of Your Feature.

For example,

"<BOL><FNT name='Arial' size='14'>" & [FIELDNAME1] & "</FNT></BOL>" & vbCrLF &"<FNT name='Arial' size='10'>" & [FIELDNAME2] & "</FNT>"& vbCrLF &"<FNT name='Arial' size='8'>" & [FIELDNAME3] & "</FNT>"

plots the contents of the fields (FIELDNAME1 to FIELDNAME3) one below the other, the first one in bold. If You would like to underline the first expression, use <UND> and </UND>.

Hope, it was helpful

best regards

Wolfgang

No, it wasn't. I missunderstood the question. Sorry

[WesMiller]

I don't know of a tool that will draw a line from the location to location. If your location data has X,Y locations you could build a line with python. ArcGIS Help 10.1

[SepheFox]

Hi Rosalind, this is actually a quite complex problem. One idea for getting the data on the map, is to do table joins, based on the location fields. For example, say you have a feature class of villages, and your data about people contains birth/live/work fields with village names. You can join right click the villages layer, and select join, then join to the people layer based first on birth location. Then you can save this joined layer as a feature class called birth. You can remove the join to the villages, and then join again based on the live field, etc.

[ToddBlanchette]

Hi Rosalind,

ArcGIS will read X and Y coordinate values from a table, but the X and Y must be in different columns (unless you're willing to do some parsing with Python - a little more advanced).  If you're set up with X and Y in different columns, but you have multiple locations within the same row, you can create multiple point feature classes based off of each entry (ie one point FC for home, one for work, etc) all based off the columns for that FC.

[ChrisSmith7 · Accepted solution]

Rosalind,

There's a good forum posting which contains information on adding x,y data to a map:

Need Assistance - First Time User

The geocoding part probably will not be particularly useful for you since you are working with historic, international data - hopefully, you already have the northing/eastings, or lat/longs (x,y data), for their locations, otherwise, you will need to do quite a bit more research to find this information (I'm assuming you need it at the street level). Geographic data in the UK is tough... There's historic geog, modern geog, ceremonial geogs, geogs with many synonyms, etc. Good luck!

Once you have the x,y data, your life will be much easier. You will probably want to create something like a "spider diagram", or "desire lines":

ArcGIS Help 10.1 - spider Diagram

This would basically create lines (with distance) from their home location, to work, and maybe to their birth place, if needed.

Here's an older posting dealing with 9.3, if helpful:

python - How to write a script that will automatically draw lines from one point to multiple destina...

You may not have the necessary Esri license (Business Analyst), if not, perhaps a QGIS plug-in will work:

QGIS Python Plugins Repository

Here's info on QGIS plug-ins:

Plugins

And where to download QGIS:

Welcome to the QGIS project!

As a new user to GIS, you will have your work cut-out for you! But, once you figure it out, will really discover the power of GIS!

[RosalindCrone]

Thank you, everyone, for your very helpful suggestions.

Chris - I have read up on spider diagrams and I think that is the tool I need to use, so thank you very much for pointing me to it. I had a look at QGIS, but in my travels I also found a package of extensions which used to be called Hawth's tools (now GME - here: http://www.spatialecology.com/gme/gmecommands.htm) which can be used in ArcGIS and can create spider diagrams. I think I might try that first (unless it is thought to be a bad solution). I get the message, too, from the above that having the x,y coordinates is crucial. Because it is historic data and very far from perfect, I have been using a shapefile of parish polygons from which I created a shapefile of parish points and I have been joining/ relating on the name of the parish. I will get the x,y coordinates for those parish points next.

Many thanks again,

Rosalind.