An overview of the Geostatistical Analyst toolbar and toolbox

With Geostatistical Analyst, you can easily create a continuous surface or map from measurements stored in a point feature layer or raster layer or by using polygon centroids. The sample points may be measurements such as elevation, depth to the water table, or levels of pollution. When used in conjunction with ArcMap, Geostatistical Analyst provides a comprehensive set of tools for creating surfaces that can be used to visualize, analyze, and understand spatial phenomena.

A quick tour of Geostatistical Analyst

Toolsets	Description
Interpolation	Tools to predict values at unmeasured locations.
Sampling Network Design	Comprises tools used to assist in the placement of new sampling sites. The Densify Sampling Network tool can also be used to determine which sampling sites are no longer required.
Simulation	Tools in this toolset are used to perform geostatistical simulations and to assist in the analysis of the results.
Utilities	Tools for pre- and postprocessing when developing interpolation models using the Geostatistical Analyst.
Working with Geostatistical Layers	This toolset contains tools used to create, modify, export, and manipulate the properties of a geostatistical layer.

Toolsets in the Geostatistical Analyst toolbox

Geostatistical Analyst toolbar

Geostatistical Analyst contains tools for exploratory spatial data analysis and a geostatistical wizard to lead you through the process of creating a statistically valid surface. These tools are not part of the geoprocessing tools; however, the results obtained from them can be used in the geoprocessing tools.

Adding the Geostatistical Analyst toolbar to ArcMap

Tool	Description
Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA)	Examines your data in different ways, allowing a view into the data before creating a surface so that you gain a deeper understanding of the phenomena you are investigating and make better decisions on issues relating to your data.
Wizard	The Geostatistical Analyst wizard guides you through the process of creating a statistically valid surface.
Subset Features	Divides the original dataset into two parts: one part to be used to model the spatial structure and produce a surface, the other to be used to compare and validate the output surface. The Subset Features tool is a geoprocessing tool that can also be accessed from the Geostatistical Analyst toolbox.

Interactive tools to perform geostatistical analysis.