I am researching the movement behavior of salamanders. I am first looking for a program, extension, or script that will allow me to determine the overall, straight-line direction, bearing, or trend for an animal movement path, taking into account the sinuosity of the path. From this information, I will also like to determine the angle between this formed line and another line that do not necessarily intersect. I have found a program called MB-Ruler Pro that will calculate the angle between two non-intersecting lines, but it is quite expensive.
Hi..
If you are familiar with Arc GIS then, you can use Hawths Analysis tool (animal movement option). In this you can calculate both step length and angle associated with each step.
Another alternative is the Geospatial Modelling Environment from SpatialEcology.com. The download is free. Look for the command "movement.pathmetrics"
After looking at these tools, they may work for what I am trying to accomplish, but I see they give the bearings and angles for each path segment. I am looking for a program that provides the bearing for the entire path, including all segments, to get a trend line for the direction of travel.
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