Drawing a buffer

A buffer is an area that includes all points within a specific distance of another location (or range of locations) on a map. A buffer is useful for proximity analysis, or to define a search area.

About this task

You can select one or several map items to use as the locations around which to draw a buffer. When you select several items, Analyst's Notebook Connector for Esri starts by calculating a buffer around each item, and then takes the union of intersecting buffers. The resulting shape behaves like a single piece. Even if some of the buffers are displayed separately on the map, you cannot select them individually.

Procedure

To draw a buffer around one or more map items:

Select the items in the Map window.
From the toolbox, select Draw Buffer.
Enter a distance for the buffer, and click Go.
Analyst's Notebook Connector for Esri adds the result of drawing the buffer to the Results tab in the Map window.
In the Results tab, click the green View Query Results icon for the Draw Buffer result.
Analyst's Notebook Connector for Esri adds a Query Results layer to the Layers tab, and displays the buffer on the map.

What to do next

You can combine the buffer with mapped chart items, drawings, routes, query results, and other buffers, and use the combination as the source of a new buffer for more analysis.