Delete duplicate points in ArcGIS 10.1

Question

Recently was doing some work on an old layer and found that when I selected one point, or used the identify tool I was returning SEVEN points when it should just be one! I am currently using an ArcGIS 10.1 and have access to both Editor and Info licenses.

Is there an easy way to delete these duplicates via python, or another tool? The ObjectIDs are different but the values contained in other fields are the same. Therefore I think looking at intersecting geometry would be the best option There is probably easily over 2000 points with duplicates.

Thanks.

Answer 1

How about this:

Generate X/Y for each point.

Dissolve Using X/Y as the Dissolve_Field(s).

Note: The dissolve tool is located Data Management Tools > Generalization > Dissolve.

Answer 2

You can use shape field as the compare fields in the Delete Identical tool (ArcInfo/Advanced level only).

If you have problems using this tool you may follow the steps below;

1. Add a field called X
2. Add a field called Y
3. Calculate geometry for X and Y fields.
4. Export the attribute table to text file.
5. Open it on Excel
6. Use X and Y fields for remove duplicates function.
7. Import the txt back into ArcGIS to create a new shapefile with removed values.

Answer 3

Pythonic way of what Brad Neson and help for GISKid too..

import arcpy
arcpy.env.overwriteOutput=True
fc= r"C:\Users\USER_NAME\Documents\ArcGIS\CWS.shp" ## path to your input feature class
output = r"C:\Users\USER_NAME\Documents\ArcGIS\CWS_Unique.shp"   ## path to your output feature class

arcpy.AddField_management(fc,"_unqfld_","TEXT","","","","","NULLABLE")## "_unqfld_" is the unique field where concatenation to be applied

curU  = arcpy.UpdateCursor(fc)
for row in curU:
    row._unqfld_=row.X+row.Y ## "X" and "Y" are the field  name  to be concatenated
    curU.updateRow(row)
del curU
arcpy.Dissolve_management(fc,output,"_unqfld_" ,"","","")

Answer 4

without the delete identical tool,
I often concat two fields together that make them identical but unique from others,
summarize and join that back.
EDIT: you would maybe during the join select through each set of unique values (from the concat) take the min oid value and edit it's summary value to 1.

select all that have a value greater than 1,
and delete.

Answer 5

You can also use the Collect Events tool, which will create a new dataset and add a field with the count of overlapping points. This one is particularly useful when you want to keep a record of how many overlapping points there were for each location.

Note that this tool is part of the Spatial Statistics toolbox.