Aggregate Points

This tool works with a layer of point features and a layer of areas. The layer of areas can be an input polygon layer or it can be square or hexagonal bins calculated when the tool is run. The tool first determines which points fall within each specified area. After determining this point-in-area spatial relationship, statistics about all points in the area are calculated and assigned to the area. The most basic statistic is the count of the number of points within the area, but you can get other statistics as well.

For example, suppose you have point features of coffee shop locations and area features of counties, and you want to summarize coffee sales by county. Assuming the coffee shops have a TOTAL_SALES attribute, you can get the sum of all TOTAL_SALES within each county, the minimum or maximum TOTAL_SALES within each county, or other statistics like the count, range, standard deviation, and variance.

This tool can also work on data that is time-enabled. If time is enabled on the input points, then the time slicing options are available. Time slicing allows you to calculate the point-in area relationship while looking at a specific slice in time. For example, you could look at hourly intervals, which would result in outputs for each hour.

For an example with time, suppose you had point features of every transaction made at a coffee shop location and no area layer. The data has been recorded over a year, and each transaction has a location and a time stamp. Assuming each transaction has a TOTAL_SALES attribute, you can get the sum of all TOTAL SALES within the space and time of interest. If these transactions are for a single city, we could generate areas that are one kilometer grids, and look at weekly time slices to summarize the transactions in both time and space.

Choose a layer containing points to aggregate into areas

The point layer what will aggregate into the areas.

In addition to choosing a layer from your map, you can select Browse Layers found at the bottom of the drop-down list to browse your contents for a big data file share dataset or feature layer.

Choose an area layer to aggregate into

The areas that the point layer will be aggregated into. You can choose between an area layer that you provide, or bins that are generated when the tool runs.

Choose the area layer to aggregate into

The area layer to which the points will be aggregated. Any points that fall within the boundaries of areas in this layer will be counted and optionally summarized using your choice of statistics.

Either the Distance Interval for bins or an Area Layer must be set.

Choose a distance to generate bins and aggregate into

The distance used to generate bins to aggregate your input points into.

Either the Distance Interval for bins or an Area Layer must be set.

Aggregate using time slices (optional)

If time is enabled on the input point layer and it is of type instant, then you can analyze using time slicing. There are three parameters you can set when you use time:

Time Interval
Time Step
Reference Time

Imagine you had data that represented a year in time, and you wanted to analyze using weekly slices. To do that you would set you Time Interval to 1 week.

Imagine you had data that represented a year in time, and you wanted to analyze using the first week of month. To do that you would set you Time Interval to 1 week, your Time Step to 1 month, and your Reference Time to January 1, at 12:00 am.

Time interval to be aggregate into

Interval of time used for slicing the data. Time interval may be used alone, or used with the Time Step or Reference Time.

If you wanted to create time slices that took place every Monday from 9:00 am until 10:00 am. The Time Interval would be one week. The Time Step would be one week, and the Reference Time would be 9:00:00 AM on a Monday.

Time step to be aggregate into

The step used for calculating a time slice. Time step may be used alone, with a Time Interval, with a Reference Time, or with both a Time Interval and Reference Time.

Reference time used to align the time slicing

The date and time used to align time slicing. Time Steps will start from, and continue backwards for the reference time.

Add statistics (optional)

You can calculate statistics about attributes of numeric fields of the input layer such as:

Count
Mean
Min
Max
Range
Variance
Standard deviation

You can calculate statistics about attributes of string fields of the input layer, such as:

Count
Any —This statistic is a random sample of a string value in the specified field.

All statistics are calculated on non-null values. The resulting layer will contain a new attribute for each statistic calculated. Any number of statistics can be added by choosing an attribute and statistic.

SpatialReference (wkid)

This is a temporary parameter for Pre-Release to set the processing spatial reference. Many big data tools require that a projected coordinate system is used as the spatial reference for processing. By default, the tool will use the input coordinate system, but will fail if it's a geographic coordinate system. To set a projected coordinate system, enter the WKID. For example, Web Mercator would be entered as 3857.

Choose datastore

This is a temporary parameter for the Pre-Release to set the data store that results are saved to. Both data stores are part of ArcGIS Data Store. If you select the spatiotemporal data store, and do not have one installed the tool will fail.

Result layer name

This is the name of the layer that will be created in My Content and added to the map. The default name is based on the tool name and the input layer name. If the layer already exists the tool run will fail.

Using the Save result in drop-down box, you can specify the name of a folder in My Content where the result will be saved.