REDCAP: Regionalization with Constrained Clustering and Partitioning

Regionalization is to divide a large set of spatial objects into a number of spatially contiguous regions while optimizing an objective function, which is normally a homogeneity (or heterogeneity) measure of the derived regions. This software package includes a family of four hierarchical regionalization methods, which are based on three agglomerative clustering approaches, including the single linkage, average linkage (ALK), complete linkage (CLK), and the WARD's method. The Ward's, Full-Order-ALK, and the Full-Orde-CLK methods all can produce significantly better results than existing approaches. For a specific application context, it is recommended that these three methods are applied and compared.

Related Publication: 
  • Guo, D. and H. Wang (2011). "Automatic Region Building for Spatial Analysis", Transactions in GIS, 15(s1), pages 29-45. [Journal Link]
  • Guo, D. (2008). "Regionalization with Dynamically Constrained Agglomerative Clustering and Partitioning (REDCAP)".International Journal of Geographical Information Science. 22(7), pp. 801-823.
  • Guo, D. (2009). "Greedy optimization for contiguity constrained hierarchical clustering", The 4th International Workshop on Spatial and Spatiotemporal Data Mining, IEEE International Conference on Data Mining, pp. 591-596.
  • Guo, D., M. Gahegan, A.M. MacEachren, and B. Zhou. "Multivariate Analysis and Geovisualization with an Integrated Geographic Knowledge Discovery Approach".Cartography and Geographic Information Science,Vol. 32, No. 2, 2005, pp. 113-132.
  • Guo, D., J. Chen, A. M. MacEachren, and K. Liao (2006), "A Visualization System for Spatio-Temporal and Multivariate Patterns (VIS-STAMP)", IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 12(6), pp. 1461-1474.

Java is needed to run the following software. You can verify if Java is already installed on your computer at this link: http://java.com/en/download/installed.jsp.

A new version of REDCAP with smoothing has just been released (see below). 

  • Allows data smoothing of selected variables (optional). By default, there is no smoothing.
  • Loads shape file (and its .dbf file). No need to have a separate csv file.
AttachmentSize
redcap.zip16.47 MB

Comments

Shape File Type

Submitted by Diansheng Guo on 02/22/2012.

REDCAP works with Polygon shape files but not Polygon ZM. You can convert a Polygon ZM file to a Polygon shape file in ArcGIS:

  • First, disable the output containing M and Z values (right click on Arctoolbox --> environments --> disable output has M/Z values in the dropdown menus for both of M values and Z values).
  • Then copy features into a new shapefile (Arctoolbox --> Data Management Tools --> Features --> Copy Features).

Evaluation and Comparison Results with Synthetic Data

Submitted by Diansheng Guo on 03/17/2011.

We recently conducted an evaluation of different regionalization methods with a large number of synthetic data. The results are partially available here, which is part of a paper that is currently in press with the journal Transactions in GIS. The new version of REDCAP with smoothing will be released in August, 2011.

 

New Release of REDCAP

Submitted by Diansheng Guo on 07/15/2010.

The REDCAP.jar file has been updated with a slightly new version. The old version assumed that each object had no more than 10 spatial neighbors. Now each object can have any number of neighbors. 

If you cannot run the JAR file for any reason, please let us know.

Tips for REDCAP

Submitted by Diansheng Guo on 07/08/2010.

The construction of contiguity matrix and aggregation of sets of shapes to regions may take a long time if the shapes (e.g., polygons) have very detailed boundaries, which are not necessary for REDCAP since it focuses on topology (i.e., contiguity). It is highly recommended that you simplify (generalize) the shape boundaries of your data with ArcMap (version 9.3.1):

  • Open ArcMap and then open ArcToolBox
  • Data Management Tools --> Generalization --> Simply Polygon
  • Load your shape file and set a simplification tolerance value (which is to control how much you want to simply), which depends on the data coverage and details of your data.
  • Select "Resolve Errors" for handling topological errors.

For ArcMap (version 10):

  • Cartography Tools --> Management Tools --> Generalization --> Simply Polygon

Then you will have a new shape file. Compile your data set for REDCAP based on this new shape file. This will significantly improve the performance of and your experience with REDCAP.

The materials distributed on this website since 2008 are based upon work partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0748813. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recomendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).