topic Least Cost Path (Spatial Analyst) - Raster Line output to shapefile in Geoprocessing Questions

Least Cost Path (Spatial Analyst) - Raster Line output to shapefile

ShinoRah — Tue, 28 May 2013 21:20:20 GMT

Hi there,

I have been using cost distance and least cost path to give me the optimal route between 2 points. The output of this is a raster line. I have converted this raster line to a vector polyline however I am encountering some difficulty.

1) The shapefile is rather jagged and not a smooth line - is this a function of my raster cost surface? Anyone know a way for me to smooth out the line based on some level of tolerance for jaggedness?

2) I have been unable to find a way to add the "cost" of that raster line to the vector polyline as an attribute. I guess this comes down to taking a raster value and attributing it to a vector field (?).

If anyone has any ideas on how I might accomplish these two problems, please let me know.

Re: Least Cost Path (Spatial Analyst) - Raster Line output to shapefile

JennB — Wed, 29 May 2013 20:31:38 GMT

http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#//007000000012000000

1 - Yes, you are getting that jagged line because of it being derived from a raster. Perhaps you could use something like that to smooth the result?

2 - Not sure how you'd go about doing this. Offhand, I can't remember what the VAT looks like for the least cost path raster.

Re: Least Cost Path (Spatial Analyst) - Raster Line output to shapefile

ChrisSnyder — Thu, 30 May 2013 16:32:08 GMT

#1: You might find this thread interesting (same Jenn B?): http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/44464-Problems-with-cost-path-analysis-not-shortest-distance

#2: You should be able to to run stats on your paths using the ZonalStatistics or ZonalStatisticsAsTable tools. Your path would be the zone, and you could calculate MAX or MEAN cost values (or some other stat) from your cost surface.