How to calculate cost surface distance in ArcGIS?
Cost distance tools calculate for each cell the least accumulative cost to specified source locations over a cost surface. A source and a cost dataset must first be created. These datasets can be created in different ways with the tools available in the ArcGIS Spatial Analyst extension.
How are costs measured in a cost surface?
Costs could be measured monetarily or in other ways such as amount of time. A cost surface includes the cost of reaching certain cells from one or more source cells. Cost surfaces can be useful to do things such as travel cost analysis, cost path analysis, and cost distance analysis.
How is cost allocation used in cost distance analysis?
Cost Allocation, another cost distance tool, can be used to identify, for each cell, which source is the least-costly to reach. Each location is allocated to the source that is least costly to reach. The cost distance tools take an iterative approach to produce the cost distance raster.
How is the final cost surface raster created?
The final cost raster is created by adding together the weighted datasets. The following diagram shows the final cost raster. It is the result of reclassifying the input datasets of slope and land use; weighting each by 0.66 and 0.34, respectively; then combining the weighted datasets.
How is the cost connectivity tool used in ArcGIS?
The Cost Connectivity tool, using a minimum spanning tree algorithm, creates the optimum network of least-cost paths connecting all the patches. Using the resulting network, each region can be reached from all other regions (possibly traveling through intermediate regions to get there).
How to use cost distance raster in Python?
The cost distance raster identifies, for each cell, the least accumulative cost distance over a cost surface to the identified source locations. A source can be a cell, a set of cells, or one or more feature locations. The output raster is of floating point type. The following Python Window script demonstrates how to use the CostDistance tool.
How does nodata work in the cost surface tool?
Cell locations with NoData in the Input cost raster act as barriers in the cost surface tools. Any cell location that is assigned NoData on the input cost surface will receive NoData on all output rasters (cost distance, allocation, and back link).