Find the best pathway between 20 sample locations

[MatthewIrwin]

Hi, so i have created within a polygon 20 sample points, now i have been asked to find the best path to start and finish at the same point location. so doing a loop and covering all points. any ideas?
cheers
Matt

[JoeBorgione]

Hi, so i have created within a polygon 20 sample points, now i have been asked to find the best path to start and finish at the same point location. so doing a loop and covering all points. any ideas?
cheers
Matt

Let me make sure I have this straight:  leave point A and visit points 1-20 once and then return to point A.  If that's correct, you are modeling the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). 

Take a look here for starters:  http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#//004700000053000000

and then on to here:  http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/Route_analysis/004700000045000000/

That ought to answer you question.

[MatthewIrwin]

Thanks for the reply. The thing is, there is no network to start with, its just 20 random points in a paddock (field) and im trying to find the most efficent path to visit them all  and end up back at the same location.

[JoeBorgione]

Hmmm.... Given you posted this to the network analyst forum, and what you describe is a classic network problem, naturally I assumed there was a network involved.  My bad.

[MatthewIrwin]

my bad really, i didnt really know where to post this. thought this might be a good start

[JaySandhu]

You can make a network dataset based on a dense grid of lines (say 100 meter or less spacing) with the "Create Fishnet" GP tool. You can give the polygon paddock as the constraining feature class. Now that you have a "street" network, you can use the Route solver with the "Reorder stops to find Optimal Route" option and get the best way to visit these 20 locations.

Jay Sandhu