1

I have digitized the outline of many river channels (by both manually picking points and using streaming mode), but now I need the vertices to be evenly spaced (for input to another program). I tried to use the "densify" tool which was partially successful, but this adds additional vertices at the specified distance whereas I wanted to also simplify the sections that were streamed and have too many vertices.

Has anyone any suggestions for a tool I might try? I have no experience in writing scripts, but may be able to modify another. Many thanks in advance.

Improve this question
3
  • 1
    any attempt to remove points that form changes in direction will result in a change in the polygon shape. Any densify tool will add additional point whilst retaining those that retain the true geometry of the shape
    – user681
    Commented Feb 4, 2014 at 1:05
  • Thanks Dan - yes, I'm willing to accept some change to the shape and would set the spacing to what the dataset is able to "tolerate" without grossly altering it. There are no adjacent shapes, so topology isn't a real concern.
    – Rachel N
    Commented Feb 4, 2014 at 1:08
  • Can the spacing of your vertices change from polygon to polygon, or is there some set distance that all vertices need to be from each other? How will all of the vertices have the same spacing in polygons that have varying perimeters?
    – CStarbird
    Commented Jan 26, 2016 at 21:25

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

Here are the main steps to go through. I can add further details if needed but don't have time right now :

  • polygon to line to convert your polygons (ET Geowizard or Advanced ArcGIS licence)
  • split your line proportionnally (in edit session of using the tool from advanced licence)
  • create new line from points (several hints on this site, for example here -finally, feature to polygon to get back to the polygons. Note that you can use the centroids of the polygons to get the attribute values back.
Improve this answer
1

Not sure whether you're talking about polygons or polylines, but there are commands for Generalization that sound like what you want. SmoothLine or SimplifyLine are two that seem appropriate to your question.

since you're dealing w/polygons, there's SimplifyPolygons.

Improve this answer
2
  • Sorry, I meant I have a bunch of polygons. I checked out those two suggestions - they look perfect for lines. Can I use them on polygons though?
    – Rachel N
    Commented Feb 4, 2014 at 1:19
  • Thanks again Roland - SimplifyPolygons looks similar to what I need, but it doesn't resample the vertices so that they are evenly spaced. I'll keep looking - I must make the polygon vertices evenly spaced for the next step in my analyses to work.
    – Rachel N
    Commented Feb 4, 2014 at 3:16

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.