Produce line from components, length and angle

Question

I have a CSV file, or point data file which includes information about line vectors which I have previously calculated. This file is outlined as such:

x, y, dx, dy, length, angle(east_from_north)
1,1,1,1,1,1
2,2,2,2,2,2
...
n,n,n,n,n,n

Where x, y are the co-ordinates of each point; dX, dY are the Cartesian components of the line; length is the length/magnitude, and angle(east_from_north) is the bearing of the line (east 0degrees, north 90degrees).

I also have the the original set of x, y data from which I calculated the dX, dY components, length and angle using some python trig, if that would help this process. For example:

x1, y1, x2, y2
1,1,1,1
2,2,2,2
...
n,n,n,n

I would like to produce lines from each point using the x, y values as the originating point with the length and angle creating the length and direction of the line.

I have used a QGIS plugin, Vector Field Renderer to produce lines with arrowheads depicting the 'magnitude' and direction using this information which has been useful for one part of my analysis; however this does not transform the point data into polylines, only produces a line symbol -- for example:

Vector Field Renderer output

Effectively I would like to reproduce this output, but as a polyline file for which I can do further analysis on. The line does not need to have arrow heads.

Edit: Solutions involving QGIS, GRASS GIS, GDAL, ArcGIS or Python/ ArcPy would be greatly received. Though, as I am currently learning (and a bear of little brain) a well-commented/ walkthrough-esque solution would be amazing!

A solution in Python with PyQGIS is presented in How to create points based on the distance and bearing from a survey point? — gene, May 10 '14 at 15:33
Thank you, however this seems to involve creating the final points, and does not plot the vector between the two as a polyline within a shapefile.
Or have I missed something? — MACooperr, May 10 '14 at 15:39
It is easy to create the line between two points with PyQGIS — gene, May 10 '14 at 16:08

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:34

With the solution given in How to create points based on the distance and bearing from a survey point? and memory layers.

Part of a my class to create memory layers from the Python console (How to create points in a specified distance along the line in QGIS？):

class Crea_layer(object):
   def __init__(self,name,type):
        self.type=type
        self.name = name
        self.layer =  QgsVectorLayer(self.type, self.name , "memory")
        self.pr =self.layer.dataProvider() 
 def create_point(self,geometry):
     # add point to the layer
     self.seg = QgsFeature()
     self.seg.setGeometry(QgsGeometry.fromPoint(geometry))
     self.pr.addFeatures([self.seg])
     self.layer.updateExtents()
   def create_line(self, point1,point2):
       self.seg = QgsFeature()
       self.seg.setGeometry(QgsGeometry.fromPolyline([point1,point2]))
       self.pr.addFeatures( [self.seg] )
       self.layer.updateExtents()
   @property
   def show_layer(self):
       QgsMapLayerRegistry.instance().addMapLayers([self.layer])

processing:

   # direction cosines function
   import math
   def cosdir_azim(azim):
       az = math.radians(azim)
       cosa = math.sin(az)
       cosb = math.cos(az)
       return cosa,cosb

   original_point = QgsPoint(50,50)
   azimuth = 120
   length = 50
   cosa, cosb = cosdir_azim(azimuth)
   end_point = QgsPoint(original_point.x()+(length*cosa), original_point.y()+(length*cosb))
   # create the points layer
   pt = Crea_layer("pt_120_50", "Point")
   pt.create_point(original_point) 
   pt.create_point(end_point)
   pt.show_layer

Result:

enter image description here

Create the line layer joining the points:

   li = Crea_layer("l_120_50", "LineString")
   li.create_line(original_point,end_point)
   li.show_layer

Result:

enter image description here

Produce line from components, length and angle

1 Answers1