One important reason for performing GIS analysis is to determine proximity. Often, this type of analysis is done using vector data and possibly the Buffer or Near tools. In this course, you will learn how to calculate distance using raster datasets as inputs in order to assign cells a value based on distance to the nearest source (e.g., city, campground). You will also learn how to allocate cells to a particular source and to determine the compass direction from a cell in a raster to a source.What if you don't want to just measure the straight line from one place to another? What if you need to determine the best route to a destination, taking speed limits, slope, terrain, and road conditions into consideration? In cases like this, you could use the cost distance tools in order to assign a cost (such as time) to each raster cell based on factors like slope and speed limit. From these calculations, you could create a least-cost path from one place to another. Because these tools account for variables that could affect travel, they can help you determine that the shortest path may not always be the best path.After completing this course, you will be able to:Create straight-line distance, direction, and allocation surfaces.Determine when to use Euclidean and weighted distance tools.Perform a least-cost path analysis.

CrimeStat III is a spatial statistics program for the analysis of crime incident locations, developed by Ned Levine and Associates under the direction of Ned Levine, PhD, that was funded by grants from the National Institute of Justice (grants 1997-IJ-CX-0040, 1999-IJ-CX-0044, 2002-IJ-CX-0007, and 2005-IJ-CX-K037). The program is Windows-based and interfaces with most desktop GIS programs. The purpose is to provide supplemental statistical tools to aid law enforcement agencies and criminal justice researchers in their crime mapping efforts. CrimeStat is being used by many police departments around the country as well as by criminal justice and other researchers. The program inputs incident locations (e.g., robbery locations) in 'dbf', 'shp', ASCII or ODBC-compliant formats using either spherical or projected coordinates. It calculates various spatial statistics and writes graphical objects to ArcGIS, MapInfo, Surfer for Windows, and other GIS packages. CrimeStat is organized into five sections: Data Setup Primary file - this is a file of incident or point locations with X and Y coordinates. The coordinate system can be either spherical (lat/lon) or projected. Intensity and weight values are allowed. Each incident can have an associated time value. Secondary file - this is an associated file of incident or point locations with X and Y coordinates. The coordinate system has to be the same as the primary file. Intensity and weight values are allowed. The secondary file is used for comparison with the primary file in the risk-adjusted nearest neighbor clustering routine and the duel kernel interpolation. Reference file - this is a grid file that overlays the study area. Normally, it is a regular grid though irregular ones can be imported. CrimeStat can generate the grid if given the X and Y coordinates for the lower-left and upper-right corners. Measurement parameters - This page identifies the type of distance measurement (direct, indirect or network) to be used and specifies parameters for the area of the study region and the length of the street network. CrimeStat III has the ability to utilize a network for linking points. Each segment can be weighted by travel time, travel speed, travel cost or simple distance. This allows the interaction between points to be estimated more realistically. Spatial Description Spatial distribution - statistics for describing the spatial distribution of incidents, such as the mean center, center of minimum distance, standard deviational ellipse, the convex hull, or directional mean. Spatial autocorrelation - statistics for describing the amount of spatial autocorrelation between zones, including general spatial autocorrelation indices - Moran's I , Geary's C, and the Getis-Ord General G, and correlograms that calculate spatial autocorrelation for different distance separations - the Moran, Geary, Getis-Ord correlograms. Several of these routines can simulate confidence intervals with a Monte Carlo simulation. Distance analysis I - statistics for describing properties of distances between incidents including nearest neighbor analysis, linear nearest neighbor analysis, and Ripley's K statistic. There is also a routine that assigns the primary points to the secondary points, either on the basis of nearest neighbor or point-in-polygon, and then sums the results by the secondary point values. Distance analysis II - calculates matrices representing the distance between points for the primary file, for the distance between the primary and secondary points, and for the distance between either the primary or secondary file and the grid. 'Hot spot' analysis I - routines for conducting 'hot spot' analysis including the mode, the fuzzy mode, hierarchical nearest neighbor clustering, and risk-adjusted nearest neighbor hierarchical clustering. The hierarchical nearest neighbor hot spots can be output as ellipses or convex hulls. 'Hot spot' analysis II - more routines for conducting hot spot analysis including the Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Crime (STAC), K-means clustering, Anselin's local Moran, and the Getis-Ord local G statistics. The STAC and K-means hot spots can be output as ellipses or convex hulls. All of these routines can simulate confidence intervals with a Monte Carlo simulation. Spatial Modeling Interpolation I - a single-variable kernel density estimation routine for producin

The Walk Score(tm) is calculated by mapping out the distance to amenities in nine different categories (grocery stores, restaurants, shopping, coffee shops, banks, parks, schools, book stores/libraries, and entertainment) and are weighted according to importance. The distance to a location, counts, and weights determine a base score of an address, which is then normalized to a score from 0 to 100. More information on Walk Score can be found at http://www.walkscore.com/.Source: Walk ScoreYears Available: 2011, 2017