7/3/2019 Introduction to Geospatial Concepts: Introduction to Vector Data

This lesson is being piloted (Beta version)

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Introduction to Vector Data

 Overview

Teaching: 10 min
Exercises: 5 min
Questions
What are the main attributes of vector data?
Objectives
Describe the strengths and weaknesses of storing data in vector format.
Describe the three types of vectors and identify types of data that would be stored in each.

About Vector Data

Vector data structures represent specific features on the Earth’s surface, and assign attributes to those features. Vectors are
composed of discrete geometric locations (x, y values) known as vertices that define the shape of the spatial object. The
organization of the vertices determines the type of vector that we are working with: point, line or polygon.

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7/3/2019 Introduction to Geospatial Concepts: Introduction to Vector Data

Image Source: National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)

Points: Each point is defined by a single x, y coordinate. There can be many points in a vector point file. Examples of point
data include: sampling locations, the location of individual trees, or the location of survey plots.

Lines: Lines are composed of many (at least 2) points that are connected. For instance, a road or a stream may be
represented by a line. This line is composed of a series of segments, each “bend” in the road or stream represents a vertex that
has defined x, y location.

Polygons: A polygon consists of 3 or more vertices that are connected and closed. The outlines of survey plot boundaries,
lakes, oceans, and states or countries are often represented by polygons.

 Data Tip

Sometimes, boundary layers such as states and countries, are stored as lines rather than polygons. However, these
boundaries, when represented as a line, will not create a closed object with a defined area that can be filled.

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✏ Identify Vector Types

The plot below includes examples of two of the three types of vector objects. Use the definitions above to identify which
features are represented by which vector type.

 Solution 

Vector data has some important advantages:

The geometry itself contains information about what the dataset creator thought was important
The geometry structures hold information in themselves - why choose point over polygon, for instance?
Each geometry feature can carry multiple attributes instead of just one, e.g. a database of cities can have attributes for name,
country, population, etc
Data storage can be very efficient compared to rasters

The downsides of vector data include:

potential loss of detail compared to raster

potential bias in datasets - what didn’t get recorded?
Calculations involving multiple vector layers need to do math on the geometry as well as the attributes, so can be slow
compared to raster math.

Vector datasets are in use in many industries besides geospatial fields. For instance, computer graphics are largely vector-based,
although the data structures in use tend to join points using arcs and complex curves rather than straight lines. Computer-aided
design (CAD) is also vector- based. The difference is that geospatial datasets are accompanied by information tying their features to
real-world locations.

Vector Data Format for this Workshop

Like raster data, vector data can also come in many different formats. For this workshop, we will use the Shapefile format which has
the extension .shp . A .shp file stores the geographic coordinates of each vertice in the vector, as well as metadata including:

Extent - the spatial extent of the shapefile (i.e. geographic area that the shapefile covers). The spatial extent for a shapefile
represents the combined extent for all spatial objects in the shapefile.
Object type - whether the shapefile includes points, lines, or polygons.
Coordinate reference system (CRS)
Other attributes - for example, a line shapefile that contains the locations of streams, might contain the name of each stream.

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Because the structure of points, lines, and polygons are different, each individual shapefile can only contain one vector type (all
points, all lines or all polygons). You will not find a mixture of point, line and polygon objects in a single shapefile.

 More Resources

More about shapefiles can be found on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapefile)

 Why not both?

Very few formats can contain both raster and vector data - in fact, most are even more restrictive than that. Vector datasets
are usually locked to one geometry type, e.g. points only. Raster datasets can usually only encode one data type, for
example you can’t have a multiband GeoTIFF where one layer is integer data and another is floating-point. There are sound
reasons for this - format standards are easier to define and maintain, and so is metadata. The effects of particular data
manipulations are more predictable if you are confident that all of your input data has the same characteristics.

 Key Points

Vector data structures represent specific features on the Earth’s surface along with attributes of those features.
Vector objects are either points, lines, or polygons.

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