Random Points on Lines...

Random Points on Lines...

Random Points on Lines... is a free open-source plugin for QGIS used to generate random points on line layers, enhancing spatial data analysis by quickly simulating random data points.

Random Points on Lines... designed for efficiency and ease of use.

Random Points on Lines... is a user-friendly dialog interface to select the line layer and specify the number of random points.

The resulting random points are added as a new temporary layer with additional attributes, including coordinates in both the layer's CRS (XCoord, YCoord) and the project's CRS (CRSXCoord, CRSYCoord), as well as a distance field (Distance) indicating the distance from the start of the line to the point location.

The extension is available from the official repository, QGIS plugins page.

Use the QGIS Plugins menu to install the Random Points on Lines..., QGIS manual.

A zip file of the current release is also available here for manual installation.

Random Points on Lines... has been developed using QGIS 3.34.

Any line layers can be from any geospatial data source supported by QGIS.

1. Allows users to generate a specified number of random points along selected line layers.

2. Allows users to choose specific line layers from the active QGIS project to apply random point generation.

3. Allows users to set the exact number of random points to generate for better control and flexibility.

Random Points on Lines... can be found in Vector menu and in the Research Tools submenu after the installation.

This is the main interface of the Random Points on Lines.... When you click the Random Points on Lines..., a popup dialog box will appear on the panel in the QGIS interface.

As you can see from the interface, there are three sections which are Layer Selection, Offset Settings, and Point Generation Settings.

In the Layer Selection, users can choose the line layers from which random points will be generated. The dropdown menu exclusively displays line layers.

If you want to generate random points using only the line layer currently selected in the map canvas, you may enable the Use Only Selected Features checkbox.

The Offset Settings section allows users to specify the start and end points for generating random points along the lines. These values can be adjusted using the sliders or by entering the desired percentage directly.

If users want to mirror the start and end offsets, simply check the Mirror checkbox.
If needed, users can restore the offset settings to their default values by clicking the Reset Offsets button.

The final section, Point Generation Settings, allows users to specify the desired values for the Random Seed and the Minimum Distance. For additional information, users can click the Help button located in the upper-right corner of the interface, which will open a popup dialog box.

To close the dialog box, simply click the OK button.

Back to the Point Generation Settings section, users can enable the Use Field for Dynamic Point Generation option to generate points based on attribute values from a specified column field.

When this checkbox is selected, the Number of Points field will be grayed out and cannot be modified.

By default, you can manually enter a value in the Number of Points field to specify the number of random points to generate.

Once all configurations have been made, click the Generate Points button to generate the random points for the selected line layers.

If you find a bug or have suggestions for improving the plugin, use the issues tracker. In addition, questions about using the plugin can be asked directly from our website.