Creating a Closest Site and Point-in-Polygon task - centrusdesktop - 2024.01

Closest Site analysis compares the geocoded addresses (or other points) in your input file to a geocoded site layer you specify in the Closest Site options tab. Centrus Desktop can identify the closest sites for each point in the input file, and return the site's identifier and the straight-line distance to the site for each site found.

To create a new task:

1. Select the Closest Site tab, and click Configure.
2. Select Process> Options> Closest Site tab from the menu, or the  icon from the toolbar.
3. When the Process Options window opens, click Add GSB.
4. When the Select Layers window opens, select the appropriate file and click Open.
5. From the Process Options window, select the Point-in-Polygon tab.
6. When the Select Layers window opens, select the appropriate file and click Open.
7. Select the appropriate input options for Latitude and Longitude.

   The options for Latitude and Longitude are the same as the Field Name under Assign Outputs.

   The options under Field Name correspond to your input data when creating the task.

8. Select the necessary outputs from the Available Outputs field, and click Assign or New. See the following table for more information on the output options.

   Available outputs	Description
   Closest Site
   Name	Name of the feature as it is defined in the layer.
   Distance	Distance from the address to the closest site in the layer. The GSB file must be built with buffering enabled to return a distance value.
   Direction	Direction from the address to the closest site in the layer, measured in degrees, with north at 0/360 degrees.
   Point-in-Polygon
   Status	Defines where an address lies in relation to the polygon. Status codes are: P in polygon E Edge; in buffer, inside polygon B In buffer, outside polygon N Not found For an illustration of the status codes, see Point-in-Polygon analysis.
   Distance	The distance from the address to the edge of the polygon. The GSB file must be built with buffering enabled to return a distance value.
   Name	The name of the feature as it is defined in the layer.

   Note: For more information, see Data file reference.
9. You can now process the task by selecting Process > Process Task or Batch Process Task from the menu, or by clicking the   icon from the toolbar.
10. When the Process window opens, click Next Error or Batch.
11. Click Done.

Importing Closest Site or Point-in-Polygon layers

To import third-party layer files:

1. Select Process > Options from the menu or the icon from the toolbar.
2. Select either the Closest Site or the Point-in-Polygon tab.

   The following steps apply to either chosen tab.

3. Click Import.
4. When the Importer window opens, click Browse to select the path and name of the file to import.

   To determine which field is used as the object's identifier, click the Identifier Field drop-down list box.

5. Click Browse on the Output area of the dialog box to select the object file (.gsb) to create.
6. Verify that the Enable Buffering checkbox is selected. If this checkbox is not selected, you do not receive in-border or in-buffer polygon locations and distance-to-border values.

   To create attributes to receive more information about the points, select the Create Spatial Attributes checkbox. If the input file is a proprietary shape file, the file must be a .shp or .tab file. If the input is a table file, the type must be delimited, text, .dbf, or .mdb.

   Note: For more information, see Spatial attributes.
7. Click Import.
8. Click OK.

   The Available Outputs selection box is populated with the standard Name, Distance, and Direction attributes, as well as the fields contained in your import file (if you imported Spatial attributes). You can now assign any of these fields as output fields.

   Note: While Western-hemisphere locations are correctly expressed as negative longitudes, some mapping and GIS applications still return longitudes as positive numbers. Be sure that the longitude data in your imported layer is consistent with that of your address file.

Removing Closest Site or Point-in-Polygon layers

To remove layers:

1. Select Process > Options from the menu or the  icon from the toolbar.
2. Select either the Closest Site or the Point-in-Polygon tab.
3. Select the file you want to remove from the Closest Site or Point-in-Polygon Layers lists and click Remove.

Adding a Closest Site or Point-in-Polygon layer

To add a layer from a geocoded database table:

1. Select Process > Options from the menu or the  icon from the toolbar.
2. Select either the Closest Site or the Point-in-Polygon tab.

   The following steps apply to either chosen tab.

3. Click Add Table. A file selection dialog box appears.
4. Select the desired file and click Open. The Closest Site Table Import Settings dialog box appears.
5. Verify that the Latitude and Longitude fields are correct.
6. Select the field you want to use as Site Name from the drop-down list, and click OK.