Deprecating Cost Path as Polyline tool is a really bad idea
Hi. I'm excited to see this new forum. I hope that it takes off. I've been building a tool that connects all pairs of points using least-cost path analysis. I rely heavily on the Cost Path as Polyline and Cost Distance tool which are in the Legacy toolset in Spatial Analyst -> Distance. The Cost Path as Polyline tool returns the warning "This tool is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. The Optimal Path as Line tool provides enhanced functionality and performance". My tests are indicating that these tools are not equivalent and the actual result from the Cost Path as Polyline is superior to the Optimal Path as Line tool. What I'm seeing is that the cost-distance and path length from A to B and B to A is consistent with the Cost Path as Polyline but differs with the Optimal Path as Line tool. The Optimal Path as Line tool also generalizes the lines in ways that don't seem consistent. This seems like a major potential loss despite the additional bells and whistles of the Optimal Path as Line tool. I don't feel like the Optimal Path as Line tool is consistent enough for my use, unfortunately.
The tool that I'm building (have built) has calculates least-cost paths for all pairs of points similar to the Landscape Genetics toolbox by Thomas Etherington (at least one of his tools) and Pathmtrix which ran in ArcView 3.3.
Etherington, T. R. (2011). Python based GIS tools for landscape genetics: visualising genetic relatedness and measuring landscape connectivity. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 2(1), 52-55.
Ray, N. (2005). PATHMATRIX: a geographical information system tool to compute effective distances among samples. Molecular Ecology Notes, 5(1), 177-180.