If one or more area feature(s) are selected,
the Create Area Skeletons option
will appear in the Advanced
Feature Creation Options sub-menu of the right-click menu. This option
can also be accessed in 3D View from the Advanced Feature Creation sub-menu
available of the Selection
Mode right-click menu.
The Create Area Skeletons (Center
Lines) option will allow the user to create a straight skeleton within
each selected area, these will be added as new line feature(s) will be
added to a new or existing layer of data using the Modify
Feature Info dialog.
In geometry, a straight skeleton is a method of representing a polygon by a topological skeleton. It is similar in some ways to the medial axis but differs in that the skeleton is composed of straight line segments, while the medial axis of a polygon may involve parabolic curves.
Example
In the following example, the green area is the original polygon, and the red lines are the straight skeleton. The green represents the selected area feature, with the red 'straight skeleton' representing the new, derived line features.
