Best way to merge many lines into one calculated line using ArcPy?

JerryMullerman — Wed, 24 Jul 2019 22:22:19 GMT

I'm working on an ETL process to pull data from one data source (a web API, provided by a generic data service) and entering it into a SQL Server database used by a client with ArcMap. I'm also semi-new to ArcGIS, so some of this is over my head.

The features I'm importing are all user-collected, and are usually collected by multiple people at multiple different times, which leads to a lack of uniformity in the geospatial information.

So far everything is great, but here's where I start getting lost. Some feature layers contain lines that are composites of the lines in another feature layer. People collect coordinates as they hike part of a route, and upload their hike and which route they were hiking. I have a feature layer called SubRoute, who's features represent each hiking path, and a feature layer called Route that will contain features representing the path of an entire hiking route. I want to use SubRoutes to calculate the entire Route path by combining everyone's individual hike.

During development, I was provided with test data which was all nearly ideal (and ordered). No two SubRoutes overlapped, and each began near where the last one ended. I was able to simply append each line together to get one perfect line. The test data looked similar to Graph A in the attached image.

Now, Im looking at the real-world data and it looks more like Graph B, with the potential to look like Graph C or worse. Obviously, my previous approach won't work at all. Now I'm kind of stuck.

How would I take a group of lines, and create one composite line to represent the "average" (for lack of better words) of all of the lines? The blue line in Graphs A and B is what I am looking for.

Do you guys have any suggestions?

Bonus problem: After I find the composite line, I would like the take all the individual lines and change them to overlay the new composite line. I'm assuming the Snap tool is best for this?

Thanks for your time, I really appreciate any advice or suggestions!

Re: Best way to merge many lines into one calculated line using ArcPy?

DanPatterson_Retired — Wed, 24 Jul 2019 23:47:29 GMT

buffer your polylines by a finite amount to collapse the inter-line space

convert the buffer to a centerline

Polygon To Centerline—Topographic Production toolbox | ArcGIS Desktop

good first start

topic Best way to merge many lines into one calculated line using ArcPy? in Python Questions

Best way to merge many lines into one calculated line using ArcPy?

Re: Best way to merge many lines into one calculated line using ArcPy?