SpaceStat Overview

SpaceStat allows you to view the data in your project, display these data in maps and graphs, and perform statistics to evaluate spatial patterns. What makes this software unique is that it is a space-time information system. In SpaceStat, time is a dimension of the data, rather than an attribute linked to each object in the dataset. Thus, almost all views of the data can be animated, from maps to histograms to tables. But, SpaceStat does more than just animate your data, it allows you to make statistical inferences about patterns in the data as well. SpaceStat allows you to view, interact with and statistically analyze your space-time data so that you can make informed decisions.

Over the past year, we have added powerful new tools for manipulating data and performing statistical analyses, including several which are not available in any other software package. In addition, we have improved data import by adding the option to import geographies or attribute data directly from Microsoft Office Excel files, and made it easy to copy graphs or maps from SpaceStat and paste them into other programs. Here we provide an overview of the features we have available in SpaceStat.

Regression tools

Although certainly not unique to SpaceStat, aspatial regression tools, including linear, Poisson, and logistic regression allow you to go from spatio-temporal data exploration to model building within one software package. In addition to the “simple” forms of these regression tools, SpaceStat also allows you to use model-building tools such as best subset, and forward and backward stepwise regression. All of these tools can be applied to datasets that encompass multiple times, which allows you to quickly evaluate how model fit and other parameters change over time.

In SpaceStat, you can also perform geographically-weighted regression (local, rather than global regression analyses); as with aspatial regression, your GWR models can have a linear, Poisson, or logistic form.

Using SpaceStat, you can not only build both spatial and aspatial models, you can run models developed using one method (i.e., as an aspatial linear model) in another form (i.e., aspatial Poisson, or linear GWR), and use our wealth of data exploration tools to explore how this change in tools influences the results of your analysis over all of the time periods in your datasets.

Improved Disparity Statistics

Following the publication of advances in quantifying health disparities by Goovaerts et al. (2007), we are the first to make these advances available in a software package.

New ways to Aggregate Data/Change your Spatial Data Support

SpaceStat allows you to aggregate (change the spatial support) for your data in four different ways: from a point or polygon geography to a different point or polygon geography, or from points to polygons and vice versa.

Import data as Microsoft Office Excel files

To simplify the process of importing data, we now provide the option of importing data directly from Microsoft Office Excel. You can use this option to bring in a new point geography or to add datasets to existing geographies in your SpaceStat project.

Copy Graphs, Maps, and Tables to the Clipboard

The Map/Graph menus now include an option to copy an image of a given graph or map to the clipboard so that you can paste the image into word processing or presentation (e.g., Microsoft Powerpoint) files open in different software programs. You can perform a similar function with the copy option in the Edit menu for tables, and copy tabular information directly into Microsoft Excel.