What are some potential uses for the Line Statistics and Block Statistics tools in the Neighborhood toolset?
Line Statistics takes a polyline feature class as input and returns statistics calculated over the total length (or some other integer attribute) in a neighborhood. For example, the median statistic calculates the median value if each line segment were laid end to end.
One would expect the Mean statistic, when calculated using the Length attribute, to return the average length of all neighborhood line segments. The results return a much larger value than the summary statics in the polyline attribute table.
Block Statistics calculates statistics over a raster using non-overlapping neighborhoods. Neighborhoods can be an annulus, wedge, or other irregular shape. What is the need for the particular neighborhood shapes included with the tool?
What exactly are the Line Statistics and Block Statistics tools calculating and what potential uses would the results have?
An example would be to smooth out a DEM prior to creating contour lines with the Block Statistics mean tool, that's one thing I use these tools for...the shapes - and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, could be used, say if you had an east to west trend in your data, onshore/offshore for example, you could use an ellipse or other shape.
Thank you for the reply!
It sounds like the primary use for Block Statistics is to resample a raster to a coarser resolution.
Building off that - Is there any application for Line Statistics with Contour Lines?