Locating points along a line, perpendicular to that line

[DevinMannix]

Disclaimer: I have next to no experience with code, and I'm relatively new to ArcGIS, but I figure that my problem is such that learning to write a code would probably go faster than trying to do this manually.

I'm in a particularly frustrating situation trying to locate sets of several hundred points, a few thousand total. The points were surveyed using the only prominent landmark; specifically, all I have to locate them is a distance measurement along the line, and a perpendicular distance from that point (I believe my life would be easier if either measurement was made at a regular distance, but this is not the case). They are, at least, all on the same side of the line.

I'm assuming I would need to populate a table with said measurements and point identifiers, but beyond that...

Fortunately, I have people in my life that will put up with my lack of knowledge, but I'm sure they would be more appreciative if I had snippets of code to get me started. Any ideas? I know there will be a cumulative error associated with line placement, but there isn't much that can be done about that.

[AnthonyTimpson2]

I would use the linear referencing toolbox, if you have the measures along a line and the distance from the line you can use the Make route event layer tool

It reads in a Line M feature (you can convert a line to this with the Create Routes Tool)
adds points based on a measure and offset.

No need to code anything.


If you need help sorting out the steps let me know, I currently work quite a bit in the linear referencing field.

[RichardFairhurst]

Disclaimer: I have next to no experience with code, and I'm relatively new to ArcGIS, but I figure that my problem is such that learning to write a code would probably go faster than trying to do this manually.

I'm in a particularly frustrating situation trying to locate sets of several hundred points, a few thousand total. The points were surveyed using the only prominent landmark; specifically, all I have to locate them is a distance measurement along the line, and a perpendicular distance from that point (I believe my life would be easier if either measurement was made at a regular distance, but this is not the case). They are, at least, all on the same side of the line.

I'm assuming I would need to populate a table with said measurements and point identifiers, but beyond that...

Fortunately, I have people in my life that will put up with my lack of knowledge, but I'm sure they would be more appreciative if I had snippets of code to get me started. Any ideas? I know there will be a cumulative error associated with line placement, but there isn't much that can be done about that.

If you actually have a line feature you can use Linear Referencing to create the points from the table you create without any code.  You could use the Create Route tool to create a new feature class that would assign measure values along the line based on its length.  You would need to make the point data into a table.  The table would need a set of 3 fields to store the line's id value (a name or a number in a field of the line), a distance along the line, and a distance to the side of the line.

When you have the Route and the table, right click the table and choose Create Route Events to match up the line as the Route feature class and the table as an event source.  Specify that you want points and fill in the fields for the measure and the side offset.  You may have to use the advanced settings to get the side offset on the correct side of the line (or just multiply the values by -1 to switch their side).

[DevinMannix]

Excellent. Better than I could have hoped.

I've created the lines as accurately as possible with the available data, but there's still plenty of room for error. Fortunately, there is stationing data associated with the line files that do have coordinates. Once I have those, everything should work out nicely. In theory.

[AnthonyTimpson2]

Linear referencing always has its quirks.

Currently working with a dataset of 2698 points distributed along about 8100 feet of pipeline in a tank farm.. Plenty of SNAFU in all that..

[RichardFairhurst]

Excellent. Better than I could have hoped.

I've created the lines as accurately as possible with the available data, but there's still plenty of room for error. Fortunately, there is stationing data associated with the line files that do have coordinates. Once I have those, everything should work out nicely. In theory.

If you have known stationing you can use the Calibration tools to fix those measure values and interpolate the remaining measures for increased accruacy relative to your field data.  Anyway, you should look at the Linear Referencing help to get more information on what you can do.