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NAME

v.net.distance - Computes shortest distance via the network between the given sets of features.
Finds the shortest paths from a feature 'to' to every feature 'from' and various information about this realtion are uploaded to the attribute table.

KEYWORDS

vector, network, shortest path

SYNOPSIS

v.net.distance
v.net.distance help
v.net.distance [-g] input=name output=name [from_layer=integer] [from_cats=range] [from_where=sql_query] [to_layer=integer] [to_cats=range] [to_where=sql_query] [to_type=string[,string,...]] afcolumn=name [abcolumn=name] [--overwrite] [--verbose] [--quiet]

Flags:

-g
Use geodesic calculation for longitude-latitude locations
--overwrite
Allow output files to overwrite existing files
--verbose
Verbose module output
--quiet
Quiet module output

Parameters:

input=name
Name of input vector map
output=name
Name for output vector map
from_layer=integer
From layer number or name
A single vector map can be connected to multiple database tables. This number determines which table to use.
Default: 1
from_cats=range
From category values
Example: 1,3,7-9,13
from_where=sql_query
From WHERE conditions of SQL statement without 'where' keyword
Example: income < 1000 and inhab >= 10000
to_layer=integer
Layer number
To layer number or name
Default: 1
to_cats=range
To category values
Example: 1,3,7-9,13
to_where=sql_query
To WHERE conditions of SQL statement without 'where' keyword
Example: income < 1000 and inhab >= 10000
to_type=string[,string,...]
To feature type
Options: point,line,boundary
Default: point
afcolumn=name
Arc forward/both direction(s) cost column
abcolumn=name
Arc backward direction cost column

DESCRIPTION

v.net.distance finds the nearest element in set to for every point in set from.

NOTES

These two sets are given by the respective layer, where and cats parameters. The type of to features is specified by to_type parameter. All from features are points. A table is linked to output map containing various information about the relation. More specifically, the table has three columns: cat, tcat and dist storing category of each from feature, category of the nearest to feature and the distance between them respectively. Furthemore, output map contains the shorest path between each cat, tcat pair. Each path consist of several lines. If a line is on the shorest path from a point then the category of this point is assigned to the line. Note that every line may contain more than one category value since a single line may be on the shortest path for more than one from feature. And so the shortest paths can be easily obtained by querying lines with corresponding category number.
The costs of arcs in forward and backward direction are specified by afcolumn and abcolumn columns respectively. If abcolumn is not given, the same cost is used in both directions.

v.net.distance will not work if you are trying to find the nearest neighbors within a group of nodes, i.e. where to and from are the same set of nodes, as the closest node will be the node itself and the result will be zero-length paths. In order to find nearest neighbors within a group of nodes, you can either loop through each node as to and all other nodes as from or create a complete distance matrix with v.net.allpairs and select the lowest non-zero distance for each node.

EXAMPLES

Find shortest path and distance from every school to the nearest hospital and show path from school number one. 
v.net.distance input=city output=nearest from_where="type=school" \
               to_where="type=hospital" afcolumn=SHAPE_LEN
d.vect nearest cats=1

SEE ALSO

v.net.path, v.net.allpairs, v.net.distance, v.net.alloc

AUTHORS

Daniel Bundala, Google Summer of Code 2009, Student
Wolf Bergenheim, Mentor

Last changed: $Date: 2013-05-23 13:01:55 -0700 (Thu, 23 May 2013) $

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