Deleting collinear vertices from polygon feature class using ArcPy

Question

I have a shapefile with polygons and want to write the Python script to eliminate collinear vertices in a polygon. I found a solution for the line feature class, but not for polygon: Deleting collinear vertex / vertices using ArcMap.

import arcpy
 
#----------------------------------------------------------------------
def are_collinear(p1, p2, p3, tolerance=0.5):
 """return True if 3 points are collinear.
 tolerance value will decide whether lines are collinear; may need
 to adjust it based on the XY tolerance value used for feature class"""
 x1, y1 = p1[0], p1[1]
 x2, y2 = p2[0], p2[1]
 x3, y3 = p3[0], p3[1]
 res = x1 * (y2 - y3) + x2 * (y3 - y1) + x3 * (y1 - y2)
 if -tolerance <= res <= tolerance:
 return True
#----------------------------------------------------------------------
def get_redundant_vertices(vertices):
 """get redundant vertices from a line shape vertices"""
 indexes_of_vertices_to_remove = []
 start_idx, middle_index, end_index = 0, 1, 2
 for i in range(len(vertices)):
 p1, p2, p3 = vertices[start_idx:end_index + 1]
 if are_collinear(p1, p2, p3):
 indexes_of_vertices_to_remove.append(middle_index)
 start_idx += 1
 middle_index += 1
 end_index += 1
 if end_index == len(vertices):
 break
 return indexes_of_vertices_to_remove
#----------------------------------------------------------------------
def clean_geometries(fc, densify_curves=False):
 """clean polyline features in the fc removing redundant vertices"""
 in_sr = arcpy.Describe(fc).spatialReference.factoryCode
 with arcpy.da.UpdateCursor(fc, ['SHAPE@', 'OID@']) as ucur:
 for row in ucur:
 print "OBJECTID", row[1]
 cleaned_parts = []
 shape = row[0]
 if 'curvePaths' in shape.JSON:
 if densify_curves:
 shape = shape.densify('DISTANCE', 1, 1)
 else:
 continue
 for part in range(shape.partCount):
 vertices = [(p.X, p.Y) for p in shape.getPart(part)]
 if len(vertices) < 3: #polyline's part consists of 2 vertices
 continue
 vertices_to_remove = get_redundant_vertices(vertices)
 vertices_to_keep = [
 val for idx, val in enumerate(vertices)
 if idx not in vertices_to_remove
 ]
 cleaned_part_as_array = arcpy.Array(
 [arcpy.Point(*coords) for coords in vertices_to_keep])
 cleaned_parts.append(cleaned_part_as_array)
 if cleaned_parts:
 cleaned_shape = arcpy.Polyline(
 arcpy.Array(cleaned_parts), in_sr)
 row[0] = cleaned_shape
 ucur.updateRow(row)
if __name__ == '__main__':
 fc = r'C:\GIS\Temp\ArcGISHomeFolder\Default.gdb\_SimpleRoads'
 #r'C:\GIS\Temp\ArcGISHomeFolder\empty.gdb\roads'
 clean_geometries(fc, densify_curves=False)

If I use this code for a polygon FC it will delete my polygons. I am new to Python and I don't know how to fix it in ArcPy.

Could you give me some tips or ideas how to achieve it? Unwanted vertices are marked with circles

• Vince: Any Ramer-Douglas-Peucker implementation with a really tight threshold ought to accomplish this. For ArcGIS, with polygons, that could be arcpy.SimplifyPolygon_cartography.
• kartographinya: @Vince actually I tried RDP algorithm. If I use threshold like 0.5 it deletes some of the needed vertices, if I set 0.001 it deletes nothing. E.g.: s = df.simplify(tolerance=0.001, preserve_topology=True)

Answer 1

I believe you only need to edit a few lines of code.

The lines I have edited/added are marked with ### at the end of the line. The key method is boundary(), it returns the polygon as a polyline and feeds that into the rest of the existing logic. The update cursor also now updates the geometry as a polygon.

So this code now expects the input to be a polygon dataset, not tested it with multi-parts either.

import arcpy
#----------------------------------------------------------------------
def are_collinear(p1, p2, p3, tolerance=0.5):
 """return True if 3 points are collinear.
 tolerance value will decide whether lines are collinear; may need
 to adjust it based on the XY tolerance value used for feature class"""
 x1, y1 = p1[0], p1[1]
 x2, y2 = p2[0], p2[1]
 x3, y3 = p3[0], p3[1]
 res = x1 * (y2 - y3) + x2 * (y3 - y1) + x3 * (y1 - y2)
 if -tolerance <= res <= tolerance:
 return True
#----------------------------------------------------------------------
def get_redundant_vertices(vertices):
 """get redundant vertices from a line shape vertices"""
 indexes_of_vertices_to_remove = []
 start_idx, middle_index, end_index = 0, 1, 2
 for i in range(len(vertices)):
 p1, p2, p3 = vertices[start_idx:end_index + 1]
 if are_collinear(p1, p2, p3):
 indexes_of_vertices_to_remove.append(middle_index)
 start_idx += 1
 middle_index += 1
 end_index += 1
 if end_index == len(vertices):
 break
 return indexes_of_vertices_to_remove
#----------------------------------------------------------------------
def clean_geometries(fc, densify_curves=False):
 """clean polyline features in the fc removing redundant vertices"""
 in_sr = arcpy.Describe(fc).spatialReference.factoryCode
 with arcpy.da.UpdateCursor(fc, ['SHAPE@', 'OID@']) as ucur:
 for row in ucur:
 print "OBJECTID", row[1]
 cleaned_parts = []
 poly = row[0] ###
 shape = poly.boundary() ###
 if 'curvePaths' in shape.JSON:
 if densify_curves:
 shape = shape.densify('DISTANCE', 1, 1)
 else:
 continue
 for part in range(shape.partCount):
 vertices = [(p.X, p.Y) for p in shape.getPart(part)]
 if len(vertices) < 3: #polyline's part consists of 2 vertices
 continue
 vertices_to_remove = get_redundant_vertices(vertices)
 vertices_to_keep = [
 val for idx, val in enumerate(vertices)
 if idx not in vertices_to_remove
 ]
 cleaned_part_as_array = arcpy.Array(
 [arcpy.Point(*coords) for coords in vertices_to_keep])
 cleaned_parts.append(cleaned_part_as_array)
 if cleaned_parts:
 cleaned_shape = arcpy.Polygon(arcpy.Array(cleaned_parts), in_sr) ###
 row[0] = cleaned_shape
 ucur.updateRow(row)
if __name__ == '__main__':
 fc = r'C:\Scratch\fGDB_Scratch.gdb\testpoly_1'
 #r'C:\GIS\Temp\ArcGISHomeFolder\empty.gdb\roads'
 clean_geometries(fc, densify_curves=False)
 print("done!")

• kartographinya: Thank you! I tried out and it deleted all my polygons :(
• Hornbydd: I think you need to share some of your data so others can look at it? Maybe its to do with the tolerance value, there is an assumption that this data is NOT WGS84?
• kartographinya: I guess, it is WGS84. Thank you so much! I attached the link in the bottom of my post.
• Hornbydd: I think the issue is with the coordinate system, yours being in WGS84 and the tolerance setting for the function are_collinear. 0.5 would be 0.5 decimal degrees, not sure what that would be in metres. So you need to re-project your data to be using such code, Looking on SpatialReference website there is this coordinate system for Kazan?
• kartographinya: Oh, right! Now I've got your point! I will try with the right one, thank you so much! :)