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ee.FeatureCollection.randomPoints

  • ee.FeatureCollection.randomPoints generates points that are uniformly random within a given geometry.

  • The distribution of the generated points depends on the dimension of the input geometry.

  • The function takes arguments for the region, number of points, seed for randomness, and maximum error.

  • The function returns a FeatureCollection of the generated points.

  • Examples are provided for generating random points using both JavaScript and Python.

Generates points that are uniformly random in the given geometry. If the geometry is two-dimensional (polygon or multi-polygon) then the returned points are uniformly distributed on the given region of the sphere. If the geometry is one-dimensional (linestrings), the returned points are interpolated uniformly along the geometry's edges. If the geometry has dimension zero (points), the returned points are sampled uniformly from the input points. If a multi-geometry of mixed dimension is given, points are sampled from the component geometries with the highest dimension.

UsageReturns
ee.FeatureCollection.randomPoints(region,points,seed,maxError)FeatureCollection
ArgumentTypeDetails
regionGeometryThe region to generate points for.
pointsInteger, default: 1000The number of points to generate.
seedLong, default: 0A seed for the random number generator.
maxErrorErrorMargin, optionalThe maximum amount of error tolerated when performing any necessary reprojection.

Examples

Code Editor (JavaScript)

// An ee.Geometry to constrain the geographic bounds of random points.varregion=ee.Geometry.Rectangle({coords:[-113.5,40.0,-110.2,41.9],geodesic:false});// Generate 50 random points with the region.varrandomPoints=ee.FeatureCollection.randomPoints({region:region,points:50,seed:0,maxError:1});print('Random points from within the defined region',randomPoints);Map.setCenter(-111.802,40.979,7);Map.addLayer(region,{color:'yellow'},'Region');Map.addLayer(randomPoints,{color:'black'},'Random points');

Python setup

See the Python Environment page for information on the Python API and usinggeemap for interactive development.

importeeimportgeemap.coreasgeemap

Colab (Python)

# An ee.Geometry to constrain the geographic bounds of random points.region=ee.Geometry.Rectangle(coords=[-113.5,40.0,-110.2,41.9],proj='EPSG:4326',geodesic=False)# Generate 50 random points with the region.random_points=ee.FeatureCollection.randomPoints(region=region,points=50,seed=0,maxError=1)display('Random points from within the defined region',random_points)m=geemap.Map()m.set_center(-111.802,40.979,7)m.add_layer(region,{'color':'yellow'},'Region')m.add_layer(random_points,{'color':'black'},'Random points')m

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Last updated 2024-02-20 UTC.