Spider Diagram in ArcGIS Pro: Tools, Steps and an Example

Published October 9, 2026 · Updated October 9, 2026 · 8 min read · by the Sakura5 team

To make a spider diagram in ArcGIS Pro, run the Generate Origin-Destination Links tool (Analysis toolbox, Proximity toolset) with your customer or demand points as the origins and your stores, clinics or facilities as the destinations, then use a group field so each point only links to the site it belongs to. If you have the Business Analyst extension, Generate Desire Lines does the same job with retail-friendly defaults, and if your start and end coordinates already sit in one table, XY To Line builds the lines directly.

The tool is the easy part. What usually goes wrong is everything around it: points linked to the wrong facility, a map that turns into a black hairball of 5,000 lines, or a distance field in the wrong units that nobody notices until the report is out. A spider diagram is only useful if every line means something.

Below: which of the three tools to pick, a step-by-step workflow, a worked example with real parameters, how to keep the map readable, and why it pays to sketch the analysis as a different kind of spider diagram before you open ArcGIS Pro at all.

What a spider diagram in ArcGIS Pro actually is

In GIS, a spider diagram — also called a desire-line map or hub-and-spoke map — draws a straight line from each origin to the destination it relates to. The lines radiate out from each hub like spider legs, which is where the name comes from.

The lines are not routes. What they show is the relationship: how far people travel, where a catchment really ends, and where two catchments overlap. That’s why the map is a standard first look in trade-area analysis, service planning and site selection.

ArcGIS Pro gives you three ways to build one:

• Generate Origin-Destination Links — part of the core Analysis toolbox. Takes two point (or polygon) layers, links them by group field or by nearest N destinations, and writes a distance onto every line. The default choice for most people.
• Generate Desire Lines — in the Business Analyst toolbox. Built around stores and customers, with a store ID field linking the two.
• XY To Line — in the Data Management toolbox. Takes a table with start X, start Y, end X and end Y fields and draws one line per row. Use it when the pairing was done elsewhere, say in a spreadsheet exported from a CRM.

Esri’s own reference page for Generate Origin-Destination Links lists every parameter; the workflow below covers the ones that decide whether the result is right.

How to make a spider diagram in ArcGIS Pro, step by step

These steps use Generate Origin-Destination Links, because it needs no extension. The logic carries over to the other two tools.

1. Get both layers into the same projected coordinate system

Distances on the output lines are only as good as the coordinate system they’re measured in. If your customers came in as latitude and longitude and your stores are in a state plane system, project one to match the other first.

2. Give origins and destinations a shared key

The group fields are what make it a spider diagram rather than a mess. Each origin needs a field holding the ID of its destination — a STORE_ID on the customer layer that matches STORE_ID on the store layer. Check for blanks and mismatched types (text “07” will not match integer 7) before you run anything.

3. Run the tool with the group fields set

Open Geoprocessing, search for Generate Origin-Destination Links, and set Origin Features, Destination Features, Origin Group Field and Destination Group Field. Pick the distance unit you’ll actually report in. Leave Number of Nearest Destinations empty when you’re using groups; fill it in when you want each point linked to its closest site instead.

4. Decide whether to aggregate

If many origins share an exact location — several customers in one apartment block — the Aggregate Links option collapses duplicate lines into one with a count.

5. Symbolize for reading, not decoration

Thin lines, a single colour, 50–70% transparency, drawn beneath the point layers. Then switch to graduated colours on the distance field so the long outliers stand out.

A worked example: six library branches, one county

Say Marcus, a GIS analyst at a county library service, is asked a blunt question by the board: if we close one of our six branches, who loses the most? He has 4,800 geocoded cardholder addresses, each tagged with a HOME_BRANCH code, and a point layer of the six branches with the same codes.

1. Prep, 15 minutes. The cardholder points are in WGS 1984; the branches are in the county’s state plane system. He projects the cardholders to match. Forty-two records have no branch code — he exports them to a separate table rather than letting them disappear silently.
2. The run. Origin Features: cardholders. Destination Features: branches. Both group fields: HOME_BRANCH. Line type: planar. Distance unit: miles. Aggregate Links: on, because many cardholders share a building.
3. First look. The output is about 4,750 lines. Five branches show tight spiders, most legs under three miles. The sixth, a small rural branch, has legs reaching nine and ten miles — and a cluster of long lines that cross right past a larger branch.
4. The real question. He reruns the tool a second time with no group fields and Number of Nearest Destinations set to 1, linking every cardholder to their closest branch. Comparing the two outputs shows 310 people who travel past a nearer branch to reach the rural one.
5. The map for the board. Two panels side by side: actual home branch versus nearest branch, lines at 60% transparency, graduated by distance. The long lines that cross a closer branch are the story.

That second run is the step most tutorials skip. A single spider diagram shows what people do. Two of them, compared, show why it matters.

Plan the analysis with a spider diagram first

Marcus’s second run didn’t come from ArcGIS Pro. It came from thinking about the board’s question before touching data — and the fastest way to do that is the other kind of spider diagram: a question in the middle, the things you need to know as legs, and the data and tools as sub-points.

For a project like this, the centre is “Which branch closure hurts least?” The legs might be: who uses each branch, how far they travel, what the nearest alternative is, what each branch offers that others don’t, and how to show it to a non-GIS audience. Under “how far they travel” go the sub-points: cardholder layer, branch codes, Generate Origin-Destination Links, units in miles. Under “nearest alternative” goes the second run.

You can sketch it on paper, but a mind map app is quicker to rearrange as the plan changes. Mindmap AI runs on iPhone, iPad and Mac and lets you build the plan on an infinite canvas, then flip it to an outline view that reads like a project checklist. If the request arrives as a long email or a brief, MindMap Pro can turn the pasted text into a first-draft map you then cut down. It doesn’t draw GIS lines — ArcGIS Pro does that — but it’s where the question gets sharp enough to answer. Our guide to mind mapping for project planning covers the planning side in more depth.

Keeping a big spider diagram readable

A few hundred lines read well. A few thousand need help. These fixes work in roughly this order.

• Aggregate first. Collapsing duplicate origin locations often removes a large share of lines with no loss of meaning.
• Cap the search. The Search Distance parameter drops links beyond a threshold.
• Use transparency, not thinner lines. Overlapping semi-transparent lines build up darker where flows are dense, which is exactly the pattern you want people to see.
• One hub per map frame. For a report, small multiples — one frame per facility — beat one crowded map with six overlapping spiders.
• Summarize alongside. Run Summary Statistics on the distance field grouped by destination. A table of median and maximum distance per site is what decision-makers quote, and the map is what convinces them.

If the lines still overwhelm the map, the problem may be the question rather than the symbology. Go back to the planning diagram — in Mindmap AI or on paper — and ask which comparison actually answers it.

FAQ

What tool creates a spider diagram in ArcGIS Pro?

Use Generate Origin-Destination Links in the Analysis toolbox. It connects origin features to destination features with straight lines, links them by a shared group field or by the nearest N destinations, and records the distance on each line. Business Analyst users can use Generate Desire Lines, and XY To Line works when start and end coordinates are already in one table.

Do I need the Business Analyst extension for spider diagrams?

No. Generate Desire Lines is a Business Analyst tool, but Generate Origin-Destination Links and XY To Line are both part of standard ArcGIS Pro toolboxes. For most trade-area and service-area maps, Generate Origin-Destination Links with group fields set produces the same result without the extension.

Why are my spider diagram lines connecting to the wrong locations?

Almost always the group fields. Check that the origin and destination fields hold the same values in the same data type — a text “07” won’t match an integer 7 — and that no origins have blank IDs. If you left the group fields empty and set nearest destinations instead, the tool links to the closest site, not the assigned one.

Are spider diagram lines the same as drive-time routes?

No. Spider diagram lines are straight, so they show relationships and straight-line distance, not travel along roads. For real travel distance or time, use the Network Analyst tools such as OD Cost Matrix with a road network. Many analysts start with a spider diagram to spot patterns, then confirm the important ones with network analysis.

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