Find external boundaries of the shape

Hi Alteryx masters,

I have customer data with mapping zipcode->region. I joined it with zipcodes shp file and grouped by region + made spatial object combide. Worked fine, however customers data didn't include coverage of all zipcodes. Combined shape has a lot of "holes" where was missing zipcode (see attached example picture). How can I fixed it? I tried to use spatial match alteryx tool to find missing zipcodes with no success.

Screen Shot 2016-08-11 at 2.25.14 PM.png

Thank you for any advice,

Piotr

Spatial Analysis

Accepted answers

tom_montpool

I think your best bet is to use the Poly-Split spatial tool.

Convert your polygon into Detailed Regions and one of the fields in the output is "Split_IsHole"

Filter out where "Split_IsHole" is True and you should be left with the outer polygon.

If that doesn't work, you could use the summarize tool to create a Bounding Rectangle.

Then you could use the Spatial Processing tool to clip your ZIP polygon out of the Bounding Rectangle.

With a bit of effort you should be able to figure out how to identify pieces that fill in the holes.

I'd try Poly-Split first!!

All comments

JessicaS

Hello @preszka,

Could you try something like the attached? If you do a spatial match you can union in the records that dont match (dont have any customers) and give them a customer count of 0, then do a thematic map to make the '0' count areas a different color.

Thanks,

map example.yxzp

tom_montpool

I think your best bet is to use the Poly-Split spatial tool.

Convert your polygon into Detailed Regions and one of the fields in the output is "Split_IsHole"

Filter out where "Split_IsHole" is True and you should be left with the outer polygon.

If that doesn't work, you could use the summarize tool to create a Bounding Rectangle.

Then you could use the Spatial Processing tool to clip your ZIP polygon out of the Bounding Rectangle.

With a bit of effort you should be able to figure out how to identify pieces that fill in the holes.

I'd try Poly-Split first!!

JessicaS

I like @tom_montpool's idea too!

preszka

Tom, polysplit worked excellent! I didn't know about "split_ishole" trick.

Thank you!

Piotr

preszka

Jessica, I tried to do it before. Find missing zipcodes, using spatial match to generate "potential region" (if zipcode is within region), union it then combine shapes again. I don't understand spatial match tool well, it didn't work. Tom's solution works fine.

Thank you, for quick answer.

Piotr

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