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SOLVED

Non overlapping Trade Areas of different sizes

mstern
7 - Meteor

I have built a workflow that dynamically sets trade area radii based on an average of how far people drive to a given store. I know there is an option to "eliminate overlap" in the TA tool, but that only works if the radii are the same.

 

Below are 2 images demonstrating my issue. The image on the left is an example of what I'm trying to accomplish (but with my dynamic TA radii). On the right you can see what my TA's look like. 

 

 DesiredOutput.jpgDynamicTAs.jpg

As one work around I thought about summarizing all TA objects (excluding the TA for that specific record) into a separate single object so I can do a Spacial Process to separate them, but that didn't work because it created an area of intersection that drops off. See example below. 

 

SpatialSplit1.jpgSpatialSplit.jpg

 

Any other creative ideas or hacks for achieving this? Maybe there is a tool that does this already that I'm not aware of. Unfortunately the non overlapping  drive time won't work for me, but that type of functionality is what I'm hoping to achieve. 

 

Thanks,

Mike

18 REPLIES 18
Philip
12 - Quasar

My solution. It uses intersections to remove the overlap, then convex hulls to create the straight lines.

 

Trade area non-overlapping with different buffer sizes.png

mstern
7 - Meteor

Wow, this is a great idea. Thank you Phillip. I will review your workflow and see if I can apply it to mine. 

 

Thank you for the reply and for taking time to dig into this!!

mstern
7 - Meteor

Philip,

 

Your idea worked great, but there are still a few minor issues. Take a look at the screenshot below. I've included a sample file with the records represented in the screenshot too. 

 

Please let me know if you have any other ideas.

 

Thanks for your help! 

Mike

 

AlmostThere.jpg

Philip
12 - Quasar

I see. Three overlapping areas are throwing it off. Let me think how to overcome this problem.

Philip
12 - Quasar

This may require the brilliance of @Ned to solve.

patrick_digan
17 - Castor
17 - Castor

@mstern I'm no spatial guru, but the attached seems to work on your sample data. I used a spatial match, filtered the data down, and then used a spatial process tool to cut out the intersections that need to go. 

 

Hope that helps!

mstern
7 - Meteor

@patrick_digan, Thanks for your effort on this as well. Unfortunately I'm not sure I'm getting the result I expected, but I'm not sure if that's an error on my end, or a misunderstanding of what I'm trying to achieve. Can you include a screenshot of what you got as a result of your workflow? 

 

I really appreciate you taking some time to look into this too! 

 

Thanks,

Mike

patrick_digan
17 - Castor
17 - Castor

@mstern No worries. From the incoming data, I have the SpatialObj points and I also used the SpatialObject_TradeArea circles. You can see that the circles are overlapping  originally:

Capture.PNG

 

Now at the end of my workflow, I still have my SpatialObj points, and then I have my Non-Overlap Trade Area circles that I created so that there is no overlap of the circles:

Capture2.PNG

In the configuration panel on the top left, I'm only selecting certain spatial objects to show/map since I was lazy and didn't get rid of unused objects. The way I know to visually identify that they're not overlapping is by clicking on them on seeing that nothing is opaque.

 

mstern
7 - Meteor

@patrick_digan Thanks Patrick. Your response makes sense, but I'm trying to do something slightly different. The screen shot I posted this morning is more what I'm trying to accomplish. Yes, I don't want the overlap, but I also want the areas between the stores to be split in a straight line based on the TA intersections.

 

Here is another example using the workflow Philip provided... On the left you can see what the current result is. One the right I quickly (and poorly) photoshop'd something closer to what I'm hoping to achieve. Philip's workflow is very close, it just has trouble when more than 2 stores are intersecting in the same area.

 

MA_Example.jpgMA_desired.jpg

 

 

 

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