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I want to create center lines from road polygons.

Are there any automated tools in ArcGIS for Desktop to do this?

I am including a Screenshot of my vector file below.

enter image description here

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  • Thank you! The solution to convert to image then vectorize did have some snapping issues, but produced much better results than collapse dual lines (totally unaccepatable). Now to automate tackling the snapping.
    – user17436
    Commented Apr 22, 2013 at 23:22

6 Answers 6

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Collapse Dual Lines To Centerline (Cartography)

This is a specific ArcGIS tool requiring ArcInfo License

ArcGIS for Desktop Basic: No
ArcGIS for Desktop Standard: No
ArcGIS for Desktop Advanced: Yes

Convert you polygons to lines first

"Derives centerlines from dual-line (or double-line) features, such as road casings, based on specified width tolerances."

enter image description here

http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//00700000000t000000

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  • Thanks for the information, I already tried center line from dual line feature in arcgis. But it didnt work correctly. Using Collapse dual line to single line dosent create line in the centre. Can u suggest any other method
    – Binoy
    Commented Jul 20, 2012 at 4:29
  • Finally i got a solution. I converted the polygon to image in arcgis using Polygo to raster tool. Then reclassified it and used Automatic vectorization. about 90 percent accuracy is obtained using this method.
    – Binoy
    Commented Jul 20, 2012 at 11:46
  • I know this hasn't been commented in a while, but when I run polygon to raster it is throwing an error (99999), does not even start processing
    – GravitaZ
    Commented Aug 5, 2015 at 15:04
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you can check out ET GeoTools for ArcGIS here. Beside this you can check out Feature To Line (Data Management) here but you have to some engaging in.

and check out Finding tunnel 'center line'? skeletisation algorithms may can help you to develop your tool.

Input Dataset

et

Result

et1 et2

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  • Thanks, this information helps me a lot. One more doubt, s it possible to convert the polygon to a raster image and then auto vectorize the image through center. Is this method a better one than the previous one, please give me suggestion.
    – Binoy
    Commented Jul 19, 2012 at 13:04
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Finally i got a solution. I converted the polygon to image in arcgis using Polygon to raster tool. Then reclassified it and used Automatic vectorization. About 90 percent accuracy is obtained using this method. There are only little snapping mismatches and also the line is drawn through the exact centre. I think this is the best way if you do not have a ET geowizards licence.

The ArcScan for ArcGIS home page says:

Starting with the release of ArcGIS 10.1, ArcScan for ArcGIS is included in all license levels of ArcGIS Desktop software at no additional cost.

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  • @fatih_dur "Starting with the release of ArcGIS 10.1, ArcScan for ArcGIS is included in all license levels of ArcGIS Desktop software at no additional cost." esri.com/software/arcgis/extensions/arcscan
    – PolyGeo ♦
    Commented Nov 30, 2017 at 0:02
  • @PolyGeo, I have removed my comment after your edit to the answer, still meself do not think the accepted solution is robust enough.
    – fatih_dur
    Commented Nov 30, 2017 at 0:28
  • @fatih_dur when I think an answer is not useful, I downvote it (as per its tooltip).
    – PolyGeo ♦
    Commented Nov 30, 2017 at 0:30
  • That's what i did way back. thanks for the licence level info regarding ArcScan, could be handy.
    – fatih_dur
    Commented Nov 30, 2017 at 0:35
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enter image description here

enter image description here

These two modeling available in ESRI software. After you can run 1st modeling we will do trim on lines model 2.

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  • This is a great framework but trimming the line >10 times isn't optimal of which I have found on a test data set.
    – Howeitzer
    Commented Apr 15, 2021 at 8:38
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There is no single geoprocessing tool that automatically performs this task. The tools used in this procedure require an ArcGIS for Desktop Advanced license-

1.Convert the polygon layer to a line feature class by using the Polygon to Line tool.

2.Remove the lines enclosing the polyline layer.

3.Save the edits, and stop the edit session.

4.Create the centerlines by using the Collapse Dual Lines To Centerline tool. The tool is located in the Cartography toolbox > Generalization toolset. The centerlines are displayed in the map.

http://support.esri.com/cN/knowledgebase/techarticles/detail/44238

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ArcGIS Pro now has a Polygon to Centerline tool, available if you have the Production Mapping extension with a standard or advanced license.

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