Order intersections of a polyline by distance

[KevinTelles]

Given a polyline L and a set S of polylines that intersect L. I need to order S based on the distance of each element to the start o L.


For example:

I tried using geometryEngine to find the intersections and calculated the distance of L to each intersection. However this won't work in some specific cases when L forms a curve. What I really needed is to calculate the distance along L to the intersection, but I couldn't find anything in the javascript API that did this.

Is there a better way to accomplish this?

[UriGilad_EsriAu]

Hi Kevin,

You can do this task by using toolboxes in a desktop environment, then wrap the process in an arcpy script. If you want it in a web environment you'll have to create a tool from your arcpy script and publish as a GP Tool.

Workflow:

1. Run the intersection tool - make sure to select Points as output type. This will create points at the intersections.

2. Select L and copy to a temp layer. Select S1's intersection point.

3. Use the 'Split Line at Point' tool to split L (in the temp layer) at S1.

4. Now L will be split in two. By using a search cursor you can get the shape length from the attribute table (if your data is in degrees create a new field and calculate geometry in projected units). Get the distance measure from the first part of the line - that will be the distance from start to intersection.

5. Repeat steps 2-4 with the different S intersection points.

Another workflow can be achieved with linear referencing:

1. Make your L a route with m-values.

2. Create the points as per step 1 in first workflow.

3. By using the 'Locate Features Along Route' tool get the m-value at the points' locations.

Hope this helps,

Uri

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