Want to get involved? We're always looking for ideas and content for Weekly Challenges.
SUBMIT YOUR IDEASo many different solutions to last week's Challenge have been posted here!
This week's Challenge riffs off a process typically used in spatial analysis with raster inputs: interpolation. In this Challenge, you are provided with two inputs: a polygon representing the island of Maui (hey, there's still snow in the forecast here in CO...can you blame me for picking a beachy location?) and a table of values representing the elevation measurements for 500 m x 500 m grid cells (much like a Digital Elevation Model). However, some grid cells contain a value of 0. We'll use some spatial tools to interpolate, or estimate, the values of the cells containing 0 from a "nearest neighborhood" or surrounding cell values.
First, build a 500 m x 500 m grid around the island of Maui. Then, interpolate the missing value using the average of the known measurements from the surrounding cells, or "neighborhood". Use a neighborhood of the 8 nearest surrounding cells in a unique cardinal direction (see example below; a neighborhood of a cell containing a 0 is outlined in blue. In this example, the new interpolated value of the center cell would be 61.5). Should a missing value be located on the edge, use only the nearest cells in a unique cardinal direction, even if 8 values are not used for the calculation.
Hint: Grid cell Grd37_68 is column 37, row 68. The Grid tool starts with column 0.
It's a good challenge when I start with a sheet of paper and pencil to figure out the logic, before any tools get dropped onto a canvas.
Here's my submission.
This was a great way for me to get more familiar with some of the Spatial tools, thanks!