Geografic-Information-System/vector/v.build.polylines

Date: 2002-10-23

Dr. Mark Lake

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~tcrnmar/GIS/v.build.polylines.html

v.build.polylines


Description

v.build.polylines builds polylines from the lines in a binary vector file.
It outputs the polylines in either binary or ASCII vector format, and if
requested, copies the attribute and category files from the original file.

A line is a single straight line segment defined by one start node, one end
node and no other nodes. A polyline is also defined by one start node, one
end node and no other nodes, but is made of two or more consecutive straight
line segments. The connections between the constituent line
segments of a polyline do not appear as nodes in the vector map.

Polylines provide the most appropriate representation of curved lines when
it is important that nodes serve to define topology rather than geometry.
Curved lines are usually digitized as polylines, but these are sometimes
broken into their constituent straight line segments during conversion from
one data format to another. v.build.polylines can be used to rebuild such
broken polylines.


Acknowledgements

This program was written during the author's tenure of a Leverhulme Special
Research Fellowhip.