[GIS] Adding “noise” to overlapping X,Y coordinates so no longer in EXACT same place

arcgis-10.0arcgis-desktopcoordinatesoverlapping-featurespoint

I have a series of points representing animal observations. Many of them overlap, having the exact same coordinates, and this is causing me trouble when I want to run some analytical tools which requite no identical points. I was wondering if there's any tool that can add some "noise" to the coordinates, that's to say, adding some random decimal values at the end in order to obtain slightly different coordinates which are still close enough in space so as to not really modify the observation. I've heard about such a tool, but I can't find it, at least in ArcGis 10. Maybe there's another software that can do it?
Thanks!

Best Answer

The Generate Conditional Random Points tool from Geospatial Modelling Environment should do the job for you. If you specify the BVUNIFORM option for the distrib atttribute (distribution) you can supply a radius around the input points within which new points will be generated in a uniform distribution. The number of points generated (the sample attribute) can either be a set amount, or the name of a field which contains the number of points to be generated.

Alternately a similar operation can be performed from within ArcGIS standard commands if you have an ArcInfo or Spatial Analyst or 3D Analyst license;

  1. Firstly buffer your points by the radius you want the output points to be measured in. Make sure that the Dissolve Type is ALL
  2. Explode the buffers with Multipart to Singlepart
  3. Use a Spatial Join through Join Data or the Spatial Join Tool to join the original points to the exploded buffers, giving you buffers with a point count (call it pcb say)
  4. Use the Create Random Points tool with the Constraining Feature class being pcb, and the Number of Points as the pcb COUNT field. You can also set a Minimum Allowed Distance for the points as well to prevent them overlapping.
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