OVERLAY ANALYSIS

• Map overlay is an important technique for

integrating data derived from various
sources.
• Perhaps it is the basic key function in GIS
data analysis and modelling surfaces.
• It is a process by which it is possible to take
two or more different thematic map layers of
the same area and overlay them on top of the
other to form a composite new layer.
• Map overlay combines the geometry and
attributes of two feature maps to create the
output.
• New spatial data sets are created involving the
merging of data from two or more input data
layers to create a new output data layer.
• Each map feature on the output contains a
combination of attributes from the input and
overlay maps.
• Overlay analysis is one of the most common
and powerful GIS technique.
• It analyses the multiple layer with common
coordinate system and determine what is on the top
layer.
Types of Overlay-
1. Vector Overlay
2. Raster Overlay
Vector Overlay:
• Overlay of vector data combine point, line and
polygon features.
• Vector based overlay is time consuming, complex
and computationally expensive.
• E.g. taking the ordering network layer of Ganga
Watershed and laying over it with the layer of
village.
• The result would be which orders of stream of
Ganga flow in which village.
Feature Type and Overlay
• In practice, the first consideration for overlay is
feature type.
• Overlay operations can take polygon, line, or
point layers as the inputs and create an output of
a new feature type.
• There are mainly three types of vector overlay
i. Point-in-polygon
ii. Line-in-polygon
iii. Polygon-on-polygon
i. Point-in-polygon Overlay:
• In a point-in-polygon operation, the same point
features in the input are included in the output.
• After overlay each point is assigned with attributes
of the polygon within which it falls.
ii. Line-in-polygon Overlay:
• In a line-in-polygon operation, the output contains
the same line features as in the input.
• But each of them is dissected by the polygon
boundaries on the overlay map.
• Thus the output has more line segments than does
the input layer.
• Each line segment on the output combines
attributes from the input layer and the underlying
polygon.
• Suppose we have to know which road is going
through forest or non- forest.
• Simply we need to overlay the line layer on
polygon, remaining extracted layer will be the
result.
iii. Polygon on polygon overlay:
• The most common overlay operation is polygon-
on-polygon, involving two polygons maps.
• The output combines the polygon boundaries
from the input and overlay maps to create a
new set of polygons.
• Each new polygon carries attributes from both
layers, and these attributes differ from those of
adjacent polygons.
In the illustration, the two layers for overlay have the
same area extent.
The output combines the geometries and attributes
from the two layers into a single polygon layer.
Overlay Methods- (polygon on polygon)
• The following explains in more detail four common
overlay methods by using two polygon layers as the
inputs.
 Union preserves all features from the inputs. The area
extent of the output combines the area extents of both
input layers.
 Intersect preserves only those features that fall
within the area extent common to the inputs.
 Intersect is often a preferred method of overlay
because any feature on its output has attribute data
from both of its inputs.
 Symmetrical Difference preserves features that fall
within the area extent that is common to only one of
the inputs.
 Symmetrical Difference is opposite to Intersect in
terms of the output’s area extent.
• Identity preserves only features that fall within
the area extent of the layer defined as the input
layer.
• But the output includes the geometry and attribute
data from the identity layer.
Raster overlay:
• In raster, data structure is represented by
cells.
• A point is represented by a single cell, a line by
a string of cells and area by group of cells.
• The methods of performing overlays are
different from those in vector GIS.
• Raster map overlay introduces the idea of
map algebra.
• A mathematical operations are performed on
individual cell values from two or more input
layers to produce an output value.
• If two grids are aligned and have the same
grid cell size then it is relatively easy to
perform overlay operations.
• A new layer of values is produced from each
pair of coincident cells
• The values of these cells can be added, subtracted,
divided or multiplied, the maximum value can be
extracted, mean value calculated.
• The output cell simply takes on a value equal to
the result of the calculation.
• Raster data processing methods can be classified
into the following categories:
 Local operations
 Neighborhood operation
 Regional operations
• A common error from overlaying polygon layers
is slivers.
• When the layers are overlaid, the digitized
boundaries intersect to form slivers.
• Constituting the core of raster data analysis,
local operations are cell-by-cell operations.
• A local operation can create a new raster from
either a single input raster or multiple input
rasters.
Local Operations with a Single Raster-
• Given a single raster as the input, a local
operation computes each cell value in the
output raster as a function of the cell value in
the input raster at the same location.
• The cell-by-cell operations are termed as
location specific overlay.
• But, assigning values to the entire thematic
regions creates a new layer, and termed as
category- wide overlay.
• The mode of operation and the purpose is
different from the local operations as it use the
boundary of one raster layer to extract the cell
values from the other raster layer.
• Used to obtain relevant data from an existing
layer for further spatial analysis.
• Operators on regions (Regional operators)
are also known as zonal operations.
• Generally a region is defined as the area with
homogeneous characteristics.
• A local operation, reclassification creates a
new raster by classification
• Reclassification is also referred to as recoding, or
transforming.
• Local Operations with Multiple Rasters-
• Local operations with multiple rasters are also
referred to as compositing, overlaying, or
superimposing maps (Tomlin 1990).
• Because local operations can work with multiple
rasters, they are the equivalent of vector-based
overlay operations.
• The cell value in (d) is the mean
calculated from three input rasters (a,
b, and c) in a local operation.
• The shaded cells have no data.
NEIGHBORHOOD OPERATIONS-
• A neighborhood operation, also called a focal
operation.
• It involves a focal cell and a set of its
surrounding cells.
• This operation assumes that the value of
particular cell is affected by the value of the
neighboring cell.
• Common neighborhoods include rectangles,
circles, annuluses, and wedges.
• Four common
neighborhood
types: rectangle (a),
circle (b), annulus
(c), and wedge (d).
• The cell marked
with an x is the
focal cell.
ZONAL OPERATIONS-
• A zonal operation works with groups of cells of
same values or like features.
• These groups are called zones.
• Zones may be contiguous or noncontiguous.
• A contiguous zone includes cells that are spatially
connected.
• Whereas a noncontiguous zone includes separate
regions of cells.
• A watershed raster is an example of a
contiguous zone - in which cells that belong to
the same watershed are spatially connected.
• A land use raster is an example of a
noncontiguous zone - in which one type of
land use may appear in different parts of
raster.
 The cell values in (c) are the zonal
means derived from an input raster
(a) and a zonal raster (b).
 For example, 2.17 is the mean of {1, 1,
2, 2, 4, 3} for zone 1.
PHYSICAL DISTANCE MEASURE OPERATIONS-
• In a GIS project, distances may be expressed as
physical distances or cost distances.
• The physical distance measures the straight-line
or Euclidean distance,
• Whereas the cost distance measures the cost for
traversing the physical distance.
A straight-line distance is measured from
a cell center to another cell center.