Skip to main content

Green compass with question mark in the middle Spatial Info Tool

User Role Requirements

User Role*

Tool/Feature Access

Full User

Basic User

X

*Applies to Alteryx One Professional and Enterprise Edition customers on Designer versions 2025.1+.

Use Spatial Info to extract tabular information about the spatial object. You can reveal attributes like area, spatial object type, number of parts, number of points, and centroid Latitude /Longitude coordinates.

One Tool Example

Spatial Info has a One Tool Example. Go to Sample Workflows to learn how to access this and many other examples directly in Alteryx Designer.

Configure the Tool

  1. Spatial Object Field: Select the column that contains a spatial object from the dropdown list to append spatial information to.

  2. Items To Output: Select the appropriate checkbox to choose the information to append to the table.

    • Area (Square Kilometers): Append the calculated area in square kilometers of the spatial objects in the table.

    • Area (Square Miles): Append the calculated area in square miles of the spatial objects in the table.

    • Bounding Rectangle as Points: Append the spatial objects (2 points) of the record to its bounding rectangle, based on the geographic extent of the incoming spatial object.

    • Bounding Rectangle as Polygon: Append a spatial object (1 polygon) of the record to its bounding rectangle, based on the geographic extent of the incoming spatial object.

    • Bounding Rectangle as X and Y Fields: Append 4 fields (BR_Left, BR_Top, BR_Right, BR_Bottom), directly related to the bounding rectangle extents' geographic coordinates.

    • Centroid as Spatial Object: Append the spatial object of the record to the centroid.

    • Centroid as X and Y Fields: Append 2 fields (X, Y) depicting the geographic coordinates of the center of its object.

    • End Points as Spatial Object: Append the endpoint (extent or where the object sequence ends) of the records' spatial object.

    • End Points as X and Y Fields: Append 2 fields (X, Y) depicting the geographic coordinates of the endpoint of a record's object.

    • Length (Kilometers): Append the line length, in kilometers, of the record's object. If the object is a line, this field reflects the total line length. If the object is a polygon, this field reflects the perimeter of the polygon object.

    • Length (Miles): Append the line length, in miles, of the record's object. If the object is a line, this field reflects the total line length. If the object is a polygon, this field reflects the perimeter of the polygon object.

    • Number of Parts: Append the number of parts that make up the object (polylines and polygons only).

    • Number of Points: Append the number of points that make up the object (polylines and polygons only).

    • Peano Key: Used to merge the x-coordinate and y-coordinate of a point so the value can be stored in a one-dimensional array. To produce a Peano key the binary bits of the latitude and longitude value for each point are merged by alternating the bits to produce a new binary number.

    • Spatial Object Type: Append the type of spatial object that is associated with the file (Point, Line, Polyline, Polygon). The difference between a polyline and a line is that a polyline contains multiple line segments, whereas a line has one start and one end point, but can have any number of points in between. A polyline can be quite complex as in the case of road systems, or rivers.

  3. Projection for XY Output: (Optional) By default, Designer reports spatial information in WGS 84 projection. You can select a different known projection and return spatial information in that projection. Select "..." to display the Edit Projection window. Go to Projection Support for more information.