I'm using ArcMap 10.3 on Windows 10 and I have the 3D analyst, ArcScan, Geo-statistical analyst, network analyst, publisher, schematics, spatial analyst and tracking analyst extensions.
How do I calculate the distances from my points (n = 157) to the polygons (n = 1891) that are within a 2km buffer around the points with the intent to use the distances in SPSS analysis and to generate a habitat suitability model using ArcMap (which will involve rasters)?
This is what the points and polygons within a 2km buffer look like:
The Generate Near Table tool produces the following:
This isn't very useful, as the object_ID field is blank so there is no way to know which polygon the distance refers to. I need to know this as the polygons represent habitat types and want to find out the distance from the point to all the habitats within the buffer. Is there a way to do this? I've tried inverting the calculation (i.e. select the polygons that are closer by and run the near distance from the polygon to the point rather tan from the point to the polygon) but that didn't fix the problem of not knowing what habitats the polygons are.
I have tried selecting by attribute to select pertinent habitats (e.g. woodlands) but doing this then causes a generic 999999 error when using the Near or Near Table tool. I've also tried selecting by attribute and exporting the table, but didn't realise the resulting table can't be used in Near.
I used the "planar" method when using the Near tool and my data are in the Irish grid coordinate system.
I've tried the euclidean distance tool, but I've no idea what to do with the output (i.e. the "heat map" type output and the lack of an attribute table).
Best Answer
Near table will only give you the nearest polygons. You've stated that you have used Generate Near Table and it didn't help.
In the absence of more details about your data and the parameters you've set, I don't see any reason why it didn't work with following parameters: