Processing multipoint data

The geometry for features such as multipoint, line and polygons may have one or more parts. In the case of Multipoint the feature's geometry is made up of one more points. Geoprocessing tools generate results based the feature (ie all the points inside the multipoint). For example using the Near tool with multipoint input (or multipart lines or polygons) will generate a result per feature, not one result per point inside the multipoint.

The following geoprocessing tools can be used to generate another type of data from an input multipoint feature class.

Another tool to be aware of is Dissolve, which takes points as input and, based on common attribute values, generates multipoints and writes them to a multipoint feature class. This is basically the opposite of what the Multipart To Singlepart tool does.

6/18/2012