Hawth's Analysis Tools for ArcGIS

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 Summary

CONVERT PATH TO POINTS TOOL
Input: a line feature layer
Output: a point feature table
Features:

• for each line, a series of points at constant intervals along the line are created
• a unique attribute value from the line is added to the point attribute table, so that each point can be tied back to the line it originated from
• optionally, XY coordaintes and turn angles can be added to the point feature attribute table

Limitations:

• always begins at the "start" of each line (see Help comments below for a discussion of this issue)

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 Example

Figure A. A single line (blue) is processed and points (orange) are generated at 100m intervals along it.

 Help

Getting started. A line feature layer must be loaded into ArcMap in order to use this tool. Select the line layer you wish to process from the drop-down box. Select a unique ID field from the drop-down box. Type in the distance interval between points (must be in the same units as the coordinate system of the data layer: i.e. meters for UTM, feet for SPC, etc). If you select the "Add XY coordinates to output table" option, X and Y fields will be added to the point attribute table. If you select the "Add turning angles to output table" option, the turn angle in degrees will be added to the point attribute table (note that three consecutive points are needed to calculate a turn angle, so the first and last points are coded with a NoData value of -999).

Directionality of lines. Every line has an inherent direction, which usually is a function of the order in which points were digitized/generated when the line was created. (I say usually because there are editing operations and programs that can change the direction). If you view a line as a collection of points (i.e. a start node, vertices, and a finish node), this tool always places the first output point at the location of the first point in the collection, and subsequently works along the line towards the end. This may be an important issue in cases where the directionality of the line is important (e.g. movement paths). Also note that it is very rare that an output point will be placed at the exact end of the arc because there is usually segment of path left over that does not meet the interval distance.