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I have one map with lines and another map with points. I want to find the distance of the buffer zone to be such so the amount of points that are in the buffer zone to reach a certain number. For example what is the buffer zone to get, 50% of all the points in the buffer zone?

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  • Can you edit your question to add some images showing a typical example of the configuration of your data?
    – Hornbydd
    Jul 2, 2014 at 8:31
  • So you see the lines and I want to find the buffer to be such so as a certain amount of points to be in the zone.
    – dimitris
    Jul 2, 2014 at 8:40

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How about this for an idea. Run your data through the near tool to create a table of distances. Sort this table by distance then identify the distance that is your 50% of points. This would be the buffer distance.

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    Due to ambiguity on "within" at exactly the buffer distance, you may want to use a value halfway between the 50% mark and the next value. You may find that more than exactly half of the features qualify.
    – Vince
    Jul 2, 2014 at 11:00
  • The near tool does not seem to make the work for this, as there are more than one lines and i want to know the buffer zone that should be applied to all the lines so as the total number of points reaches a certain number. Thanks again for your effort!
    – dimitris
    Jul 2, 2014 at 11:45
  • @dimitris: For that, you could first join all the lines and then run the "near" tool with that.
    – Jake
    Jul 2, 2014 at 12:36
  • It worked perfectly! Also, export to excel does the work after the near tool to further process with histograms or such analysis.
    – dimitris
    Jul 2, 2014 at 14:00
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    @dimitris Actually, rather than using the Near tool you might want to consider the Generate Near Table tool. It can do multiple near features, so you don't have to join the lines and it does not modify the original data.
    – Chris W
    Jul 2, 2014 at 20:24

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