topic Re: splitting lines at intersection for entire shapefile in Transportation Questions

splitting lines at intersection for entire shapefile

AbrahamMooney — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:48:17 GMT

Hello,

I need to split roads (edges) at every every intersection throughout the road network shapefile. The subsequent segments will have their original attributes (name, road-type). This seems like a somewhat common problem but I have not found a straight-forward solution.

Thanks,
Abe

Re: splitting lines at intersection for entire shapefile

BillMiller — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:44:21 GMT

There are a couple ways of doing this and of course the documentation makes it very difficult to figure it out.

1) One method is to use the Identity tool with any polygon feature class and all interestions for all lines will be automatically created based on the cluster tolerance. Other tools that use cluster tolerance will also create intersections on all your lines.

2) I think the Integrate tool does what you asking for but I'm not 100% sure.

Re: splitting lines at intersection for entire shapefile

AbrahamMooney — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:17:46 GMT

bmiller,

Thanks for the response. I have just one shape file of road "edges." Does that count as a polygon feature class? I tried the identity tool of the analysis toolbox but I do not have two shape files to overlay on top of each other therefore they cannot "cut" each other to make the line segments I need.

As for the integrate tool of the data management tools toolbox it seems that it could make vertices at the intersection points but I don't think that helps. I don't want to define line segments by vertices.

Thanks again,
Abe

Re: splitting lines at intersection for entire shapefile

AbrahamMooney — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:17:20 GMT

Also, what are cluster tolerances? Is this a matter of how close objects are before they are considered touching?

Abe

Re: splitting lines at intersection for entire shapefile

BillMiller — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 13:29:11 GMT

Sorry for the bad advice. Let me try again here.

The tool that you are looking for is called "Feature To Line".
The documentation implies that it requires polygons as input but that is not true.

Also using the documentation to find the correct tool is a moving target because there was a toolbox function for this in the samples from the previous releases. It would be nice to have a documentation page that just describes old tools and how to find the new tool. Something like "Workstation CLEAN-LINE is now Feature-To-Line".

BTW: Cluster tolerances should be as small as possible in most cases but read the documetation on it if you want to try something higher than one foot.

Re: splitting lines at intersection for entire shapefile

AbrahamMooney — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 13:37:26 GMT

Thanks for the help!

Re: splitting lines at intersection for entire shapefile

Nguyen_HoangNam — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 05:33:24 GMT

If you have ArcEditor or ArcInfo license, you can convert your shapefile to geodatabase and create topology with "must intersect" rule. If you only have Arcview license, you should convert shapefile to coverage, then you convert coverage to shapefile. Data converted to shapefile will obey to topology rules.

Re: splitting lines at intersection for entire shapefile

LanceBedard — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 20:14:58 GMT

If you have an ArcEditor (or greater) license, there is a tool on the Editor menu called "Planerize Lines" which I think will do what you are wanting. It simply breaks all lines (roads) at intersections and copies the original attributes to the resulting road fragments.

We just discovered this solution (I am a GIS long, but pretty new to ArcGIS 10) and it works great.

I hope this helps.

Re: splitting lines at intersection for entire shapefile

SergeRafanoharana — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:31:17 GMT

Hi all,

It can be easily done using the Topology Toolbar. First you need to select the line features you want to split at intersection, then choose the Planarize Lines. Just use the default cluster tolerance then OK.

You can refer to: http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgiSDEsktop/9.3/index.cfm?TopicName=Making_new_features_with_topology_tools

Regards,

Sypou

Re: splitting lines at intersection for entire shapefile

JoshWhite — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:01:19 GMT

Everyone here and the original poster want to split lines at intersections. What I am interested in doing is doing this for my utilities. What I want is for the lines to split at asset points (valves, manholes etc) do the above tools work for this. My networks are a mess and I need an easy way to fix this issue.

Re: splitting lines at intersection for entire shapefile

SteveTucker — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:56:40 GMT

Topology tool is really good for these purpose.

Re: splitting lines at intersection for entire shapefile

JoyStraley — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 17:17:42 GMT

This inquiry is for Nguyen Hoang Nam,

Regarding your recommendation of "converting shapefile to geodatabase and then creating a coverage to mimic a topology using a must intersect rule." The task at hand for myself is to is produce a topology in order to eliminate creating multiple vertices,endpoints at the locations were our county roads intersect city boundries in order to drill down to what segment needs updating to new MSAG field specifications. We want to systematically split county roads to all 26 cities and then use those splits to drill down to what segment need updating to new MSAG field specifications.

The argument is will or will not having a sound topolpgy layer help optimize the workflow and accuracy?

To test this idea what is the work flow for your recommended process "converting shapefile to geodatabase and then creating a coverage to mimic a topology using a must intersect rule."? Or do you think your process is appropriate for our task?

Thank you for your feedback,
Joy