Using the Intersect Function in Tableau for Spatial Analysis | New in Tableau 2022.4

In geospatial analysis, the intersect function is a powerful tool used to identify the areas of overlap between two or more spatial objects, such as points, lines, or polygons. These objects can represent cities, roads, or census tracts, among other things. The intersect function takes these objects as inputs and outputs a boolean object that represents the area of overlap, essentially true or false. You can imagine it as an imaginary polygon where the two match. This function can be used for tasks such as identifying common features between different datasets, aggregating data at the intersection of regions, and creating thematic maps that show the overlap between spatial data sets. In Tableau, intersect can be combined with other functions and visualization techniques to create interactive maps and charts that help users understand and analyze geospatial data.

Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:26 Connecting to data
2:03 Creating some points of interest
4:25 Splitting our text to get latitude and Longitude
9:19 Creating our buffer Polygon to intersect
12:06 Creating points for our trees
14:31 Using the intersect function in Tableau
18:50 Some quirks to watch out for

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[witoldlisicki]

Hi Tim, thanks for this. Instead of using data blending, you could simply use the Relationships (join your two data sources on 1=1). Then the intersect should work without the 'parameter workaround'. I haven't tested. Just a thought. cheers!

[datawoj]

Great video Tim. I worked on a project last year with spatial intersects using address data. This function would have been super useful then to limit the number of marks. Thanks for sharing.

[rep]

Thanks for diving into this! Loved the LinkedIn note at the end. Made my day Tim. (On a tough day for a Tableau guy)

[eranderson]

Great video. Lots of interesting uses. You did a great job explaining the entire process

[shafaoddinjavadi]

Wow
für mich war sehr interessant
Danke

[Mirrah]

Hi Tim, this is an awesome video, thanks a lot for creating it. I started to work with the Geospatial files recently and I often I have a use case where I download a shapefile of a specific geography (Data source 1) and then, via another data source (2) I bring in Points Of Interest with their Lat & Long and bunch of other info, the second data source is a simple table or a SQL connection. These two data sources don't have (to my understanding) anything to relate by so I do left outer join and I overlay the points on the map, so far so good.

But, can I use the LAT & LONG info to filter outside / outside of the shapefile using the coordinates only? I mean, the intersect function would only work with two shapefile data sources right? If I have one shapefile and a table with lat, long data, will I be able to intersect in any way?

[patrikmelichercik]

nice job Tim. the issue with Empire State Building offset, it is not because you typed in 2 x Lat and 2x Long in the parameter list? you then use Long and Lat directly from the parameter without any detail, I thing both of them get aggregated into one mark and that is why the Empire State Building is not in the exact point as the one in the map. Maybe I am wrong

[CancilleriLuis]

¿Why when I create the calculated field intersection I just have the false? So it doesn’t show me the trees

[adolfohc]

Not sure why I can't see the INTERSECT function even when I have the latest version of Tableau Desktop 🤔