About simplifying and smoothing a feature

The Advanced Editing toolbar provides tools to enable you to smooth and simplify features. This includes line and polygon features.

The Generalize command Generalize simplifies the shape of the selected features using the published algorithm (Douglas and Peucker, 1973). The degree to which the geometry is simplified depends on the maximum allowable offset, which limits how far the output geometry can be from the input geometry. For features composed of linear segments, the output vertices are a subset of the original feature vertices.

Simplifying a feature
Simplifying a feature

The Smooth command Smooth is used to smooth the straight edges and angular corners of a feature. The feature geometry is replaced by a series of smoothed line segments.

Smoothing a feature
Smoothing a feature

The Smooth tool combines the following steps:

Detailed area of the smoothed feature in the illustration above
Detailed area of the smoothed feature in the illustration above

References

Douglas, D.H., and T.K. Peucker. "Algorithms for the reduction of the number of points required to represent a digitized line or its caricature." The Canadian Cartographer 10(2), pp. 112–122, 1973.

Farin, G.,Curves and Surfaces for CAGD: A Practical Guide. 4th Edition. Academic Press, 1997.

Related Topics

6/20/2012