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I have a boundary file for a study region which is completely a forested region. I would like to create a raster: a euclidean distance raster to calculate the distance of each cell from the boundary within my study region.

I actually tried using Euclidean distance tool in ArcGIS, but the resultant raster has given values as 0 for all the cells which are within the study region. I am expecting some distance for each cell from the boundary. For e.g., cells which are closer to boundary will have certain value and cells which are farther will have greater distance value.

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  • The boundary polygon represents an area so, distance functions will be evaluating distance to the area, not within. Turn the polygon into a line feature then try again. Since a line is a discrete feature not representing area then you should get distance to the boundary from all external and internal cells. If you are only interested in internal distances then mask it by the original polygon boundary.
    – Jeffrey Evans
    Commented Jul 11 at 16:47

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If your study area is within Pennsylvania, you will want to make sure that your boundary file is not a polygon. Euclidean Distance works by giving a value of 0 to the features that you are calculating the distance from. Anything within the polygon will be given a value of 0 because it is considered the source that you're measuring distance from. The distance calculations will only be above 0 if they are outside of the source. Below I included a picture from the ArcGIS documentation on Euclidean Distance displaying how Euclidean Distance works.

Display of how Euclidean Distance works

It may be necessary to either find a new boundary that is not a polygon or utilize the Polygon to Line tool in ArcGIS. You will just need an input layer and then a name for the new line boundary file. Below I included a screenshot of my use of the tool. For your use it does not sound like you need the neighboring information box checked, but that is an option if you would find that information useful. After this step, the Euclidean Distance tool should work for your distance calculations.

Polygon to Line tool

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  • I think maybe say at the top that if you want the distance to the boundary, you need a line feature that represents only the boundary. This is buried in the second paragraph.
    – Lee Hachadoorian
    Commented Jul 17 at 21:09

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