Using a network topology, which is made up of drawing objects and their relationship data, you can calculate the best route from a starting point in the drawing, to one or more visit points, and back to the starting point.
To perform a best route analysis
- Verify that you have a network topology available and it is loaded.
- In Map Explorer under Current Drawing, right-click a network topology
. - In the Network Topology Analysis - Select Method dialog box, click Best Route. Click Next.
- In the Network Topology Analysis - Choose Locations dialog box, click Start Point. Click Select Point
to select the starting point in the drawing. Press Enter to return to the dialog box. - Click Visit Point. Click (Select Point).
- In the drawing, click a point to visit during the best route analysis.
- Do one of the following:
- To accept the point and return to the dialog box, press Enter.
- To discard the point and return to the dialog box, press Esc.
- To accept the point and specify another point, right-click in the drawing. Click Next Point.
- In the dialog box, review the start points and visit points you have specified.
- To double-check the location of a point in the map, highlight the coordinates in the list. Click Preview.
- To delete a point so that you can define a new one, highlight the coordinates in the list. Click Delete.
- To add another visit point, return to Step 5.
- Click Next.
- In the Network Topology Analysis - Resistance and Direction dialog box, select limits to put on the analysis. For resistance and direction, enter a constant or an expression that references an object data field or linked external database column. The expression will be evaluated for each link. Click
(Expression Evaluator) to select data from a list. - Link Direction — Specifies a direction for the trace. If the box is blank, bi-directional (0) is used.
- Reverse — Uses the reverse of the direction indicated in the Link Direction box.
- Link Direct Resistance — Specifies the resistance to travel in the direction that a link was created. If the box is blank, the length of the line (.LENGTH) is used.
- Link Reverse Resistance — Specifies the resistance in the opposite direction along a link. If the box is blank, the length of the line (.LENGTH) is used.
- Node Resistance — Specifies the resistance to cross the node (for example, resistance for a valve in a pipe network or a junction in a road network). If the box is blank, zero (0) is used.
- Maximum Resistance and Minimum Resistance — Any path that has a total resistance below the minimum or above the maximum is ignored.
- Click Next.
- In the Network Topology Analysis - Output dialog box, indicate whether or not to view the results of the trace onscreen and whether to save the trace results as a new topology.
- To view the best route analysis onscreen, select Highlight and choose a highlight color.
- To save the results of the best route analysis as a new topology, select Create Topology and enter a name and description for the new topology.
- Click Finish to perform the best route analysis.