ABSTRACT
A network is a system of interconnected elements, such as edges and connecting junctions that represent possible routes from one location to another. The most common network analysis is finding the shortest path between two points. This chapter introduces network representation, algorithms, and applications in GIS, and provides hands-on experience with ArcGIS. It demonstrates how to program the functions provided by ArcGIS through arcpy scripting. It explains directed and undirected networks, adjacency matrix, links table and node table, shortest path algorithms, and hands-on experience with ArcGIS through arcpy scripting. Undirected networks are used to model networks in airlines, shipping lanes, and transit routes. An adjacency matrix is a square matrix used to represent a finite graph. Most GIS software uses node-edge representation for network analysis, which is a variant of adjacency matrix. Node-edge network representation maintains a table of nodes and a table of edges. The Dijkstra algorithm is a widely used algorithm for solving the shortest path problem.
