The QGIS Line Direction Histogram Plugin

Functionality

  • The QGIS Line Direction Histogram Plugin can be used to investigate the distribution of the directions of line segments of a line or polygon vector dataset.
  • The accumulated lengths of the line segments for each direction bin determines the shape of the histogram. Alternatively, the number of segments can be used (no weighting on line segment length).
  • Line and Polygon vector layers are supported, including multigeometries.
  • Feature selections are supported.
  • The number of direction bins for the histogram can be specified.
  • All the direction bin sectors will have the same size (same number of degrees covered).
  • An angle offset (positive or negative - clockwise or counter clockwise) for the direction bins can be specified.
  • The positions of the direction bins are shown graphically.
  • A direction histogram is displayed, showing the distribution of the directions according to the chosen bins.
  • The histogram can be saved to a CSV file.
  • If the plugin window is resized, the direction histogram is also resized.

The displayed histogram

The displayed histogram is normalised, so that the maximum value of the direction bins will result in a sector with a maximum length, and the lengths of the sectors of the rest of the bins are scaled proportionally.

The saved histogram

The saved histogram is a CSV file with four columns:

  • The first column (“StartAngle”) contains the start angle of the direction bin.
  • The second column (“EndAngle”) contains the end angle of the direction bin.
  • The third column (“Length”) contains the accumulated lengths of the line segments that fall within the bin.
  • The fourth column (“Number”) contains the number of line segments that fall within the bin.

”.” is used as the decimal separator in the CSV file.

The CSV file is accompanied by a CSVT file that describes the data types of the CSV file columns.

Options

  • The user can specify if only selected features are to be used (but if no features are selected, all features will be used)
  • The user can specify the number of direction bins.
  • The user can specify an angle offset for the direction bins.
  • The user can choose to ignore the “orientation” of the lines. In that case, two lines with opposite directions will end up in the same direction bin.
  • The user can specify an output CSV file for the histogram.
  • The user can specify if line segment length shall be used for weighting the bins (this is the default).

Implementation

The calculations of the histogram is performed in a separate thread. Each line geometry is traversed from start to end. For each segment of the line, the angle and length are calculated. The angle is used to determine which bin the segment falls into, and the length is added to the accumulated length for the bin.

Polygons are split into its rings, and the line geometry of each ring is used for the calculations.

Versions

The current version is 1.2.

  • 1.2
    • Fixed issue #1 (on update of min/max for angle offset)
    • Fixed issue #2 (divide by zero when no features in layer)
    • Fixed issue #3 (effect of “no weighting” checkbox)
  • 1.1:
    • Selected features option introduced
    • Unweighted option introduced
    • Multigeometry support
    • CSV file header row added
    • CSV angle offset bug fixed
    • User interface fixes and updates
  • 1.0: First official version.

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