Simplify Contours

Summary

Defense Mapping production tool that simplifies contours for use in cartographic products. This tool preserves the essential shape of a contour by eliminating extraneous bends.

Usage

• This tool modifies the input contours. You cannot undo this operation.

• Extraneous bends are composed of redundant vertices. This tool identifies redundant vertices as those that lie within a minimum allowable distance, or tolerance. Tolerance depends upon the Scale parameter.

• The Scale parameter and tolerance values are designed for use with Defense Mapping cartographic products.

Syntax

SimplifyContours(Input_Contours, Scale)

Parameter	Explanation	Data Type
Input_Contours	The input contours that are going to be simplified.	Feature Layer
Scale	Scale value used to determine a simplification tolerance. Tolerance specifies a minimum allowable distance between vertices. The tool removes vertices that lie within this tolerance. 1:5000 —Simplification tolerance is 1 meter. 1:7500 —Simplification tolerance is 1 meter. 1:12500 —Simplification tolerance is 1 meter. 1:25000 —Simplification tolerance is 1 meter. 1:50000 —Simplification tolerance is 2 meters. This is the default. 1:100000 —Simplification tolerance is 2 meters. 1:250000 —Simplification tolerance is 3 meters. 1:500000 —Simplification tolerance is 3 meters. 1:1000000 —Simplification tolerance is 3 meters.	String

Code sample

SimplifyContours example (Python window)

The following code sample demonstrates how to use the SimplifyContours tool.

# set gp environment
arcpy.env.workspace="C:/data"

# variables for tool
inputContours="mgcp.gdb/mgcp/contours"
mapScale="1:12500"

# execute the tool
arcpy.SimplifyContours_defense(inputContours,mapScale)

Environments

• Current Workspace

Licensing information

• ArcGIS Desktop Basic: No
• ArcGIS Desktop Standard: Requires Defense Mapping
• ArcGIS Desktop Advanced: Requires Defense Mapping