Point in polygon Line in polygon Polygon in polygon Overlay operations

Until the arrival of GIS, map overlay analysis is performed manually by superimposing transparent overlays of map layers on a light table to identify sites simultaneously meeting a number of criteria. The ability to integrate variety of data sources using overlay operation is a key analytical capability of a GIS. A new data layer can be created by combining two or more input data layers through overlay operations.

A spatial operation in which one point coverage is overlaid with a polygon coverage to determine which point falls within the polygon boundaries. After overlay operations, points assume the attributes of the polygon within which they fall. We can formulate a hypothesis using the analysis in crime occurrence and neighborhood demographics, special species of birds and vegetation.

Spatial operations in which arcs in one coverage are overlaid with polygon of another coverage to determine which areas of arcs or portion of arcs are contained within the polygons. It basically involves evaluating which line segments intersect arcs of each polygon and locating intersecting node points. After the operation arcs are assigned the attributes of polygon attributes of corresponding polygons within which they fall.

A hypothesis can be formulated about the spatial relationships between the occurrence of arcs and attributes of polygon, for example, transportation routes and urban expansion zones.

A process that merges spatially coincident polygons from two coverages and their attributes to create a third coverage that contains new polygons and describe new relationships. After overlay, the resultant polygon entities are known as the least common geographical unit(LCGU). The topology of the new polygon coverage must be computed and multiple attributes from the input coverage should be assigned to LCGU.

One problem with the vector overlay is the generation of sliver polygons which arise from inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the digitized data. Polygon overlay is often used for site selection or suitability analysis.

Union Identity Intersect Update Clip Split Erase

Overlay analysis manipulates spatial data organized in different layers to create combined spatial features according to the logical operators. Commonly used logical operators are : AND -Common area/Intersection/Clipping OR - Union or Addition NOT Inverter XOR - Minus

UNION(Boolean OR Logical overlay) Overlay polygons and keep all features from both coverages.

IDENTITY: Overlay points, lines or polygons on polygons and keep all input coverage features plus those portions of the polygon coverage that overlap the input coverage.

INTERSECT (Boolean AND Logical Overlay) Overlay points, lines or polygons on polygons but keeps only those portions of the features that fall within the spatial extent common to both input and overlay coverages.

UPDATE: Merge new features using a cut and paste operation to update coverage.

CLIP: Extract a subset of features by cutting out a piece of a coverage.

SPLIT: Split a coverage into a number of smaller coverages.

ERASE: Remove part of the inside of a coverage.

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