Simplification
A general objective is to reduce the size of the dataset as much as possible (simplifying) while still providing the model with a realistic set of roads where it would permitted to haul wood now and in future planning periods.
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The existing line work can be a shapefile or an ArcInfo coverage. It is not necessary to have the coverage or feature class built as a network, although it is important to have end nodes snapped together. |
Some of the common simplification steps involve:
Clipping the road network to a reasonable size around the planning dataset. When clipping it is important to remember to keep connecting roads that would facilitate wood flow off the forest to the mill/destination locations.
Classifying segments to represent a road type. The classification is usually based on road bed quality and hauling speed and can be used later to calculate cost information.
Remove segments that do not represent a realistic route for hauling wood (e.g. abandoned roads, roads through municipal housing areas, etc.) .
Optionally remove unnecessary fields from the attribute table. Patchworks only requires a few fields to create the road network data model. Excess fields can be dropped to reduce the size and simplify the table further. See Table 15, “Required fields for spatial route data”.