Question

I need to create a (large) set of spatial polygons for test purposes. Is there an algorithm that will create a randomly shaped polygon staying within a bounding envelope? I’m using OGC Simple stuff so a routine to create the well known text is the most useful, Language of choice is C# but it’s not that important.

Answer 1

Here you can find two examples of how to generate random convex polygons. They both are in Java, but should be easy to rewrite them to C#:

• Generate Polygon example from Sun
• from JTS mailing list, post Minimum Area bounding box by Michael Bedward

Another possible approach based on generating set of random points and employ Delaunay tessellation.

Generally, problem of generating proper random polygons is not trivial.