Hi Chris and Andy, Thank you for your suggestions. I was given just Lat/Long of ship's starting port and destination port in .CSV. Beside these I don't I have any additional information. Yes, prevailing winds and ocean currents will play a role in ships actual path but I think my collaborator is looking for the shortest distance just over water regardless of any other assumption that might affect on actual route. I haven't research at published route documents but this is worth trying. Projection is another issue since dataset has thousands of ports around the globe. I am thinking of the "Merrcator Projection ?". I did a quick cost-path analysis for one of the ports pair. Due to lack of information to make a cost-raster ( I used just land and water mask as a cost raster) path tends to grip through land as below; Here voyages tends to pass very closely to land (mostly touches land mask). I am thinking to buffer land mask outward with X miles so that ships path will be X miles way from land. Also I am considering to bring ocean depth as another cost-raster if data is publicly available. Eventually, I am write a python script or run model builder once I figure out better way. I would like to hear more if anyone has any thoughts ! Thank you ! On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 11:38 AM, Andy Anderson <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > To remove the tedium, write a Python script. > > Remember, though, that distance calculations depend on the projection > you use. If you want the cost-path from, say, New York to Sydney, there is > no single projection that will give you an accurate measure. > > A better approach might be to determine the standard shipping lanes, > calculate the distances (if you can’t find them in a table), and piece > together routes. > > More generally, you could set up an iterative algorithm to calculate > distances using spheroid-based angular calculations with restrictions based > on open water (e.g. at 40° north latitude, longitude will be restricted to > roughly –74° to –9° and 128° to 140° and 142° to -124°). > > — Andy > > On Nov 10, 2014, at 9:13 AM, Milan Budhathoki <[log in to unmask]> > wrote: > > Looks like email that I sent yesterday didn't go through. > Here it is again: > > Hello Listserv, > > I have point dataset of ship trips from one port to another. I want to > calculate the shortest distance between each port pair *over water*. > There are thousands of voyages, and 5,000 unique ports from all over the > world. One of the approach I can use in ArcGIS is to run the Cost-Path > tool having water/land as a cost raster to make a path only on water. But I > assume that the Cost-Path approach would be little tedious for a large > dataset. I wonder if anyone in this forum has a suggestion to calculate a > shortest distance between two points having restricted path. > > I will highly appreciate your feedback. > > > -- > Milan Budhathoki > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This list (NEARC-L) is an unmoderated discussion list for all NEARC Users. > > If you no longer wish to receive e-mail from this list, you can remove > yourself by going to http://listserv.uconn.edu/nearc-l.html. > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This list (NEARC-L) is an unmoderated discussion list for all NEARC Users. > > If you no longer wish to receive e-mail from this list, you can remove > yourself by going to http://listserv.uconn.edu/nearc-l.html. > -- Milan Budhathoki ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This list (NEARC-L) is an unmoderated discussion list for all NEARC Users. If you no longer wish to receive e-mail from this list, you can remove yourself by going to http://listserv.uconn.edu/nearc-l.html.