randomPointsOnPolylines

Generates random points located on the polylines of the input polyline dataset. The number of points per polyline can be constant or different for each polyline - based on the values in a numeric field of the input polyline feature class."

Inputs:

A polyline feature class
The number of points per polyline can be input in one of the following ways
- A numeric field which values will be used to get the number of points to be generated per polyline.
- A constant number
Optional: The maximum number of points per polyline. This parameter is to enforce max number of points if a field is used for getting the number of points to be generated. For example if a field is selected and the values in this field range from 5 to 50,000. And the maximum number of points is set to 100, on the polylines that have values > 100 in the field only 100 points will be generated. The default value is 500.
Optional: Minimum Distance from boundary - no point will be generated that is closer than this tolerance to the ends of the polyline (introduced in version 10.2).

Outputs:

New Point feature class.
The following fields are added to the attribute table of the resulting feature class.
- [ET_ID] - the ID of the original polyline
- [ET_X] - the X coordinate of the point
- [ET_Y] - the Y coordinate of the point
- [ET_Station] - the absolute position of the point along the polyline (in the units of the spatial reference of the input point feature class)

Note: Be careful with assigning the number of points per polyline. The function will try to create N unique points on the polyline and if the number of points allocated is too large, might be very slow or even fall into an indefinite loop.

Illustration:

Original polylines labeled with the values in field to be used as a source for getting the number of points to be generated	The resulting point dataset

ToolBox implementation
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Command line syntax

ET_GPRandomPointsOnPolylines<input_dataset> <out_feature class> {number_points_field} {number_points}

Parameters

Expression	Explanation
<input_dataset>	A Plyline feature class or feature layer
<out_feature class>	A String - the full name of the output feature class.
{number_points_field}	Optional. A String numeric field which values will be used to get the number of points to be generated per polyline.
{number_points}	Optional. A number that is used in two ways If a number_points_field is specified, number_points is used as maximum points allowed per polyline If a number_points_field is an empty string, number_points is used as a constant that define the number of points to be generated per polyline

Note: One of number_points_field or number_points should be specified.

Scripting syntax

ET_GPRandomPointsOnPolylines(input_dataset, out_feature class, number_points_field, number_points)

See the explanations above:
<> - required parameter
{} - optional parameter