Shapely Documentation

Release 1.6.4.post1

Sean Gillies

Feb 22, 2018

 Contents

1 Documentation Contents 1
1.1 Shapely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 The Shapely User Manual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2 Indices and tables 53

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Documentation Contents

1.1 Shapely

Manipulation and analysis of geometric objects in the Cartesian plane.

Shapely is a BSD-licensed Python package for manipulation and analysis of planar geometric objects. It is based on
the widely deployed GEOS (the engine of PostGIS) and JTS (from which GEOS is ported) libraries. Shapely is not

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concerned with data formats or coordinate systems, but can be readily integrated with packages that are. For more
details, see:
• Shapely GitHub repository
• Shapely documentation and manual

1.1.1 Requirements

Shapely 1.6 requires

• Python >=2.6 (including Python 3.x)
• GEOS >=3.3

1.1.2 Installing Shapely 1.6

Shapely may be installed from a source distribution or one of several kinds of built distribution.

Built distributions

Windows users have two good installation options: the wheels at http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#shapely
and the Anaconda platform’s [conda-forge](https://conda-forge.github.io/) channel.
OS X and Linux users can get Shapely wheels with GEOS included from the Python Package Index with a recent
version of pip (8+):

$ pip install shapely

A few extra speedups that require Numpy can be had by running

$ pip install shapely[vectorized]

Shapely is available via system package management tools like apt, yum, and Homebrew, and is also provided by
popular Python distributions like Canopy and Anaconda.

Source distributions

If you want to build Shapely from source for compatibility with other modules that depend on GEOS (such as cartopy
or osgeo.ogr) or want to use a different version of GEOS than the one included in the project wheels you should first
install the GEOS library, Cython, and Numpy on your system (using apt, yum, brew, or other means) and then direct
pip to ignore the binary wheels.

$ pip install shapely --no-binary shapely

If you’ve installed GEOS to a standard location, the geos-config program will be used to get compiler and linker
options. If geos-config is not on your executable, it can be specified with a GEOS_CONFIG environment variable,
e.g.:

$ GEOS_CONFIG=/path/to/geos-config pip install shapely

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1.1.3 Usage

Here is the canonical example of building an approximately circular patch by buffering a point.

>>> from shapely.geometry import Point

>>> patch = Point(0.0, 0.0).buffer(10.0)
>>> patch
<shapely.geometry.polygon.Polygon object at 0x...>
>>> patch.area
313.65484905459385

See the manual for comprehensive usage snippets and the dissolve.py and intersect.py examples.

1.1.4 Integration

Shapely does not read or write data files, but it can serialize and deserialize using several well known formats and pro-
tocols. The shapely.wkb and shapely.wkt modules provide dumpers and loaders inspired by Python’s pickle module.

>>> from shapely.wkt import dumps, loads

>>> dumps(loads('POINT (0 0)'))
'POINT (0.0000000000000000 0.0000000000000000)'

Shapely can also integrate with other Python GIS packages using GeoJSON-like dicts.

>>> import json

>>> from shapely.geometry import mapping, shape
>>> s = shape(json.loads('{"type": "Point", "coordinates": [0.0, 0.0]}'))
>>> s
<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>
>>> print(json.dumps(mapping(s)))
{"type": "Point", "coordinates": [0.0, 0.0]}

1.1.5 Development and Testing

Dependencies for developing Shapely are listed in requirements-dev.txt. Cython and Numpy are not required for
production installations, only for development. Use of a virtual environment is strongly recommended.

$ virtualenv .
$ source bin/activate
(env)$ pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
(env)$ pip install -e .

We use py.test to run Shapely’s suite of unittests and doctests.

(env)$ python -m pytest

1.1.6 Support

Questions about using Shapely may be asked on the GIS StackExchange using the “shapely” tag.
Bugs may be reported at https://github.com/Toblerity/Shapely/issues.

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1.1.7 Credits

Shapely is written by:

• Sean Gillies <[email protected]>
• Oliver Tonnhofer <[email protected]>
• Joshua Arnott <[email protected]>
• Mike Toews <[email protected]>
• Jacob Wasserman <[email protected]>
• Aron Bierbaum <[email protected]>
• Allan Adair <[email protected]>
• Johannes Schönberger <[email protected]>
• georgeouzou <[email protected]>
• Phil Elson <[email protected]>
• Howard Butler <[email protected]>
• Kelsey Jordahl <[email protected]>
• dokai <dokai@b426a367-1105-0410-b9ff-cdf4ab011145>
• Kevin Wurster <[email protected]>
• Gabi Davar <[email protected]>
• Thibault Deutsch <[email protected]>
• Dave Collins <[email protected]>
• fredj <[email protected]>
• Brad Hards <[email protected]>
• David Baumgold <[email protected]>
• Henry Walshaw <[email protected]>
• Jinkun Wang <[email protected]>
• Marc Jansen <[email protected]>
• Sampo Syrjanen <[email protected]>
• Steve M. Kim <[email protected]>
• Thomas Kluyver <[email protected]>
• Morris Tweed <[email protected]>
• Naveen Michaud-Agrawal <[email protected]>
• Jeethu Rao <[email protected]>
• Peter Sagerson <[email protected]>
• Jason Sanford <[email protected]>
• mindw <[email protected]>
• Jamie Hall <[email protected]>
• James Spencer <[email protected]>

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• Stephan Hügel <[email protected]>

• Bas Couwenberg <[email protected]>
• James Douglass <[email protected]>
• Tobias Sauerwein <[email protected]>
• WANG Aiyong <[email protected]>
• Brandon Wood <[email protected]>
• BertrandGervais <[email protected]>
• Andy Freeland <[email protected]>
• Benjamin Root <[email protected]>
• giumas <[email protected]>
• Leandro Lima <[email protected]>
• Maarten Vermeyen <[email protected]>
• joelostblom <[email protected]>
• Marco De Nadai <[email protected]>
• Johan Euphrosine <[email protected]>
See also: https://github.com/Toblerity/Shapely/graphs/contributors.
Additional help from:
• Justin Bronn (GeoDjango) for ctypes inspiration
• Martin Davis (JTS)
• Sandro Santilli, Mateusz Loskot, Paul Ramsey, et al (GEOS Project)
Major portions of this work were supported by a grant (for Pleiades) from the U.S. National Endowment for the
Humanities (http://www.neh.gov).

1.1.8 Changes

1.6.4.post1 (2017-01-24)

• Fix broken markup in this change log, which restores our nicely formatted readme on PyPI.

1.6.4 (2017-01-24)

• Handle a TypeError that can occur when geometries are torn down (#473, #528).

1.6.3 (2017-12-09)

• AttributeError is no longer raised when accessing __geo_interface__ of an empty polygon (#450).

• asShape now handles empty coordinates in mappings as shape does (#542). Please note that asShape is
likely to be deprecated in a future version of Shapely.
• Check for length of LineString coordinates in speed mode, preventing crashes when using LineStrings with only
one coordinate (#546).

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1.6.2 (2017-10-30)

• A 1.6.2.post1 release has been made to fix a problem with macosx wheels uploaded to PyPI.

1.6.2 (2017-10-26)

• Splitting a linestring by one of its end points will now succeed instead of failing with a ValueError (#524,
#533).
• Missing documentation of a geometry’s overlaps predicate has been added (#522).

1.6.1 (2017-09-01)

• Avoid STRTree crashes due to dangling references (#505) by maintaining references to added geometries.
• Reduce log level to debug when reporting on calls to ctypes CDLL() that don’t succeed and are retried (#515).
• Clarification: applications like GeoPandas that need an empty geometry object should use BaseGeometry()
instead of Point() or Polygon(). An EmptyGeometry class has been added in the master development
branch and will be available in the next non-bugfix release.

1.6.0 (2017-08-21)

Shapely 1.6.0 adds new attributes to existing geometry classes and new functions (split() and polylabel()) to
the shapely.ops module. Exceptions are consolidated in a shapely.errors module and logging practices have been im-
proved. Shapely’s optional features depending on Numpy are now gathered into a requirements set named “vectorized”
and these may be installed like pip install shapely[vectorized].
Much of the work on 1.6.0 was aimed to improve the project’s build and packaging scripts and to minimize run-time
dependencies. Shapely now vendorizes packaging to use during builds only and never again invokes the geos-config
utility at run-time.
In addition to the changes listed under the alpha and beta pre-releases below, the following change has been made to
the project:
• Project documentation is now hosted at https://shapely.readthedocs.io/en/latest/.
Thank you all for using, promoting, and contributing to the Shapely project.

1.6b5 (2017-08-18)

Bug fixes:
• Passing a single coordinate to LineString() with speedups disabled now raises a ValueError as happens
with speedups enabled. This resolves #509.

1.6b4 (2017-02-15)

Bug fixes:
• Isolate vendorized packaging in a _vendor directory, remove obsolete dist-info, and remove packaging from
project requirements (resolves #468).

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1.6b3 (2016-12-31)

Bug fixes:
• Level for log messages originating from the GEOS notice handler reduced from WARNING to INFO (#447).
• Permit speedups to be imported again without Numpy (#444).

1.6b2 (2016-12-12)

New features:
• Add support for GeometryCollection to shape and asShape functions (#422).

1.6b1 (2016-12-12)

Bug fixes:
• Implemented __array_interface__ for empty Points and LineStrings (#403).

1.6a3 (2016-12-01)

Bug fixes:
• Remove accidental hard requirement of Numpy (#431).
Packaging:
• Put Numpy in an optional requirement set named “vectorized” (#431).

1.6a2 (2016-11-09)

Bug fixes:
• Shapely no longer configures logging in geos.py (#415).
Refactoring:
• Consolidation of exceptions in shapely.errors.
• UnsupportedGEOSVersionError is raised when GEOS < 3.3.0 (#407).
Packaging:
• Added new library search paths to assist Anaconda (#413).
• geos-config will now be bypassed when NO_GEOS_CONFIG env var is set. This allows configuration of
Shapely builds on Linux systems that for whatever reasons do not include the geos-config program (#322).

1.6a1 (2016-09-14)

New features:
• A new error derived from NotImplementedError, with a more useful message, is raised when the GEOS backend
doesn’t support a called method (#216).
• The project() method of LineString has been extended to LinearRing geometries (#286).
• A new minimum_rotated_rectangle attribute has been added to the base geometry class (#354).

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• A new shapely.ops.polylabel() function has been added. It computes a point suited for labeling
concave polygons (#395).
• A new shapely.ops.split() function has been added. It splits a geometry by another geometry of lesser
dimension: polygon by line, line by point (#293, #371).
• Polygon.from_bounds() constructs a Polygon from bounding coordinates (#392).
• Support for testing with Numpy 1.4.1 has been added (#301).
• Support creating all kinds of empty geometries from empty lists of Python objects (#397, #404).
Refactoring:
• Switch from SingleSidedBuffer() to OffsetCurve() for GEOS >= 3.3 (#270).
• Cython speedups are now enabled by default (#252).
Packaging:
• Packaging 16.7, a setup dependency, is vendorized (#314).
• Infrastructure for building manylinux1 wheels has been added (#391).
• The system’s geos-config program is now only checked when setup.py is executed, never during normal
use of the module (#244).
• Added new library search paths to assist PyInstaller (#382) and Windows (#343).

1.5.17 (2016-08-31)

• Bug fix: eliminate memory leak in geom_factory() (#408).

• Bug fix: remove mention of negative distances in parallel_offset and note that vertices of right hand offset lines
are reversed (#284).

1.5.16 (2016-05-26)

• Bug fix: eliminate memory leak when unpickling geometry objects (#384, #385).
• Bug fix: prevent crashes when attempting to pickle a prepared geometry, raising PicklingError instead
(#386).
• Packaging: extension modules in the OS X wheels uploaded to PyPI link only libgeos_c.dylib now (you can
verify and compare to previous releases with otool -L shapely/vectorized/_vectorized.so).

1.5.15 (2016-03-29)

• Bug fix: use uintptr_t to store pointers instead of long in _geos.pxi, preventing an overflow error (#372, #373).
Note that this bug fix was erroneously reported to have been made in 1.5.14, but was not.

1.5.14 (2016-03-27)

• Bug fix: use type() instead of isinstance() when evaluating geometry equality, preventing instances of
base and derived classes from being mistaken for equals (#317).
• Bug fix: ensure that empty geometries are created when constructors have no args (#332, #333).
• Bug fix: support app “freezing” better on Windows by not relying on the __file__ attribute (#342, #377).

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• Bug fix: ensure that empty polygons evaluate to be == (#355).

• Bug fix: filter out empty geometries that can cause segfaults when creating and loading STRtrees (#345, #348).
• Bug fix: no longer attempt to reuse GEOS DLLs already loaded by Rasterio or Fiona on OS X (#374, #375).

1.5.13 (2015-10-09)

• Restore setup and runtime discovery and loading of GEOS shared library to state at version 1.5.9 (#326).
• On OS X we try to reuse any GEOS shared library that may have been loaded via import of Fiona or Rasterio in
order to avoid a bug involving the GEOS AbstractSTRtree (#324, #327).

1.5.12 (2015-08-27)

• Remove configuration of root logger from libgeos.py (#312).

• Skip test_fallbacks on Windows (#308).
• Call setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, “”) instead of resetlocale() on Windows when tearing down the locale test (#308).
• Fix for Sphinx warnings (#309).
• Addition of .cache, .idea, .pyd, .pdb to .gitignore (#310).

1.5.11 (2015-08-23)

• Remove packaging module requirement added in 1.5.10 (#305). Distutils can’t parse versions using ‘rc’, but if
we stick to ‘a’ and ‘b’ we will be fine.

1.5.10 (2015-08-22)

• Monkey patch affinity module by absolute reference (#299).

• Raise TopologicalError in relate() instead of crashing (#294, #295, #303).

1.5.9 (2015-05-27)

• Fix for 64 bit speedups compatibility (#274).

1.5.8 (2015-04-29)

• Setup file encoding bug fix (#254).

• Support for pyinstaller (#261).
• Major prepared geometry operation fix for Windows (#268, #269).
• Major fix for OS X binary wheel (#262).

1.5.7 (2015-03-16)

• Test and fix buggy error and notice handlers (#249).

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1.5.6 (2015-02-02)

• Fix setup regression (#232, #234).

• SVG representation improvements (#233, #237).

1.5.5 (2015-01-20)

• MANIFEST changes to restore _geox.pxi (#231).

1.5.4 (2015-01-19)

• Fixed OS X binary wheel library load path (#224).

1.5.3 (2015-01-12)

• Fixed ownership and potential memory leak in polygonize (#223).

• Wider release of binary wheels for OS X.

1.5.2 (2015-01-04)

• Fail installation if GEOS dependency is not met, preventing update breakage (#218, #219).

1.5.1 (2014-12-04)

• Restore geometry hashing (#209).

1.5.0 (2014-12-02)

• Affine transformation speedups (#197).

• New == rich comparison (#195).
• Geometry collection constructor (#200).
• ops.snap() backed by GEOSSnap (#201).
• Clearer exceptions in cases of topological invalidity (#203).

1.4.4 (2014-11-02)

• Proper conversion of numpy float32 vals to coords (#186).

1.4.3 (2014-10-01)

• Fix for endianness bug in WKB writer (#174).

1.4.2 (2014-09-29)

• Fix bungled 1.4.1 release (#176).

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1.4.1 (2014-09-23)

• Return of support for GEOS 3.2 (#176, #178).

1.4.0 (2014-09-08)

• SVG representations for IPython’s inline image protocol.

• Efficient and fast vectorized contains().
• Change mitre_limit default to 5.0; raise ValueError with 0.0 (#139).
• Allow mix of tuples and Points in sped-up LineString ctor (#152).
• New STRtree class (#73).
• Add ops.nearest_points() (#147).
• Faster creation of geometric objects from others (cloning) (#165).
• Removal of tests from package.

1.3.3 (2014-07-23)

• Allow single-part geometries as argument to ops.cacaded_union() (#135).

• Support affine transformations of LinearRings (#112).

1.3.2 (2014-05-13)

• Let LineString() take a sequence of Points (#130).

1.3.1 (2014-04-22)

• More reliable proxy cleanup on exit (#106).

• More robust DLL loading on all platforms (#114).

1.3.0 (2013-12-31)

• Include support for Python 3.2 and 3.3 (#56), minimum version is now 2.6.
• Switch to GEOS WKT/WKB Reader/Writer API, with defaults changed to enable 3D output dimensions, and
to ‘trim’ WKT output for GEOS >=3.3.0.
• Use GEOS version instead of GEOS C API version to determine library capabilities (#65).

1.2.19 (2013-12-30)

• Add buffering style options (#55).

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1.2.18 (2013-07-23)

• Add shapely.ops.transform.
• Permit empty sequences in collection constructors (#49, #50).
• Individual polygons in MultiPolygon.__geo_interface__ are changed to tuples to match Poly-
gon.__geo_interface__ (#51).
• Add shapely.ops.polygonize_full (#57).

1.2.17 (2013-01-27)

• Avoid circular import between wkt/wkb and geometry.base by moving calls to GEOS serializers to the latter
module.
• Set _ndim when unpickling (issue #6).
• Don’t install DLLs to Python’s DLL directory (#37).
• Add affinity module of affine transformation (#31).
• Fix NameError that blocked installation with PyPy (#40, #41).

1.2.16 (2012-09-18)

• Add ops.unary_union function.

• Alias ops.cascaded_union to ops.unary_union when GEOS CAPI >= (1,7,0).
• Add geos_version_string attribute to shapely.geos.
• Ensure parent is set when child geometry is accessed.
• Generate _speedups.c using Cython when building from repo when missing, stale, or the build target is “sdist”.
• The is_simple predicate of invalid, self-intersecting linear rings now returns False.
• Remove VERSION.txt from repo, it’s now written by the distutils setup script with value of shapely.__version__.

1.2.15 (2012-06-27)

• Eliminate numerical sensitivity in a method chaining test (Debian bug #663210).

• Account for cascaded union of random buffered test points being a polygon or multipolygon (Debian bug
#666655).
• Use Cython to build speedups if it is installed.
• Avoid stumbling over SVN revision numbers in GEOS C API version strings.

1.2.14 (2012-01-23)

• A geometry’s coords property is now sliceable, yielding a list of coordinate values.

• Homogeneous collections are now sliceable, yielding a new collection of the same type.

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1.2.13 (2011-09-16)

• Fixed errors in speedups on 32bit systems when GEOS references memory above 2GB.
• Add shapely.__version__ attribute.
• Update the manual.

1.2.12 (2011-08-15)

• Build Windows distributions with VC7 or VC9 as appropriate.

• More verbose report on failure to speed up.
• Fix for prepared geometries broken in 1.2.11.
• DO NOT INSTALL 1.2.11

1.2.11 (2011-08-04)

• Ignore AttributeError during exit.

• PyPy 1.5 support.
• Prevent operation on prepared geometry crasher (#12).
• Optional Cython speedups for Windows.
• Linux 3 platform support.

1.2.10 (2011-05-09)

• Add optional Cython speedups.

• Add is_cww predicate to LinearRing.
• Add function that forces orientation of Polygons.
• Disable build of speedups on Windows pending packaging work.

1.2.9 (2011-03-31)

• Remove extra glob import.

• Move examples to shapely.examples.
• Add box() constructor for rectangular polygons.
• Fix extraneous imports.

1.2.8 (2011-12-03)

• New parallel_offset method (#6).

• Support for Python 2.4.

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1.2.7 (2010-11-05)

• Support for Windows eggs.

1.2.6 (2010-10-21)

• The geoms property of an empty collection yields [] instead of a ValueError (#3).

• The coords and geometry type sproperties have the same behavior as above.
• Ensure that z values carry through into products of operations (#4).

1.2.5 (2010-09-19)

• Stop distributing docs/_build.

• Include library fallbacks in test_dlls.py for linux platform.

1.2.4 (2010-09-09)

• Raise AttributeError when there’s no backend support for a method.

• Raise OSError if libgeos_c.so (or variants) can’t be found and loaded.
• Add geos_c DLL loading support for linux platforms where find_library doesn’t work.

1.2.3 (2010-08-17)

• Add mapping function.

• Fix problem with GEOSisValidReason symbol for GEOS < 3.1.

1.2.2 (2010-07-23)

• Add representative_point method.

1.2.1 (2010-06-23)

• Fixed bounds of singular polygons.

• Added shapely.validation.explain_validity function (#226).

1.2 (2010-05-27)

• Final release.

1.2rc2 (2010-05-26)

• Add examples and tests to MANIFEST.in.

• Release candidate 2.

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1.2rc1 (2010-05-25)

• Release candidate.

1.2b7 (2010-04-22)

• Memory leak associated with new empty geometry state fixed.

1.2b6 (2010-04-13)

• Broken GeometryCollection fixed.

1.2b5 (2010-04-09)

• Objects can be constructed from others of the same type, thereby making copies. Collections can be constructed
from sequences of objects, also making copies.
• Collections are now iterators over their component objects.
• New code for manual figures, using the descartes package.

1.2b4 (2010-03-19)

• Adds support for the “sunos5” platform.

1.2b3 (2010-02-28)

• Only provide simplification implementations for GEOS C API >= 1.5.

1.2b2 (2010-02-19)

• Fix cascaded_union bug introduced in 1.2b1 (#212).

1.2b1 (2010-02-18)

• Update the README. Remove cruft from setup.py. Add some version 1.2 metadata regarding required Python
version (>=2.5,<3) and external dependency (libgeos_c >= 3.1).

1.2a6 (2010-02-09)

• Add accessor for separate arrays of X and Y values (#210).

TODO: fill gap here

1.2a1 (2010-01-20)

• Proper prototyping of WKB writer, and avoidance of errors on 64-bit systems (#191).
• Prototype libgeos_c functions in a way that lets py2exe apps import shapely (#189).
1.2 Branched (2009-09-19)

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1.0.12 (2009-04-09)

• Fix for references held by topology and predicate descriptors.

1.0.11 (2008-11-20)

• Work around bug in GEOS 2.2.3, GEOSCoordSeq_getOrdinate not exported properly (#178).

1.0.10 (2008-11-17)

• Fixed compatibility with GEOS 2.2.3 that was broken in 1.0.8 release (#176).

1.0.9 (2008-11-16)

• Find and load MacPorts libgeos.

1.0.8 (2008-11-01)

• Fill out GEOS function result and argument types to prevent faults on a 64-bit arch.

1.0.7 (2008-08-22)

• Polygon rings now have the same dimensions as parent (#168).

• Eliminated reference cycles in polygons (#169).

1.0.6 (2008-07-10)

• Fixed adaptation of multi polygon data.

• Raise exceptions earlier from binary predicates.
• Beginning distributing new windows DLLs (#166).

1.0.5 (2008-05-20)

• Added access to GEOS polygonizer function.

• Raise exception when insufficient coordinate tuples are passed to LinearRing constructor (#164).

1.0.4 (2008-05-01)

• Disentangle Python and topological equality (#163).

• Add shape(), a factory that copies coordinates from a geo interface provider. To be used instead of asShape()
unless you really need to store coordinates outside shapely for efficient use in other code.
• Cache GEOS geometries in adapters (#163).

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1.0.3 (2008-04-09)

• Do not release GIL when calling GEOS functions (#158).

• Prevent faults when chaining multiple GEOS operators (#159).

1.0.2 (2008-02-26)

• Fix loss of dimensionality in polygon rings (#155).

1.0.1 (2008-02-08)

• Allow chaining expressions involving coordinate sequences and geometry parts (#151).
• Protect against abnormal use of coordinate accessors (#152).
• Coordinate sequences now implement the numpy array protocol (#153).

1.0 (2008-01-18)

• Final release.

1.0 RC2 (2008-01-16)

• Added temporary solution for #149.

1.0 RC1 (2008-01-14)

• First release candidate

1.2 The Shapely User Manual

Author Sean Gillies, <[email protected]>

Version 1.6
Date Feb 22, 2018
Copyright This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Abstract This document explains how to use the Shapely Python package for computational geometry.

1.2.1 Introduction

Deterministic spatial analysis is an important component of computational approaches to problems in agriculture,

ecology, epidemiology, sociology, and many other fields. What is the surveyed perimeter/area ratio of these patches of
animal habitat? Which properties in this town intersect with the 50-year flood contour from this new flooding model?
What are the extents of findspots for ancient ceramic wares with maker’s marks “A” and “B”, and where do the extents
overlap? What’s the path from home to office that best skirts identified zones of location based spam? These are just
a few of the possible questions addressable using non-statistical spatial analysis, and more specifically, computational
geometry.

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Shapely is a Python package for set-theoretic analysis and manipulation of planar features using (via Python’s ctypes
module) functions from the well known and widely deployed GEOS library. GEOS, a port of the Java Topology Suite
(JTS), is the geometry engine of the PostGIS spatial extension for the PostgreSQL RDBMS. The designs of JTS and
GEOS are largely guided by the Open Geospatial Consortium’s Simple Features Access Specification1 and Shapely
adheres mainly to the same set of standard classes and operations. Shapely is thereby deeply rooted in the conventions
of the geographic information systems (GIS) world, but aspires to be equally useful to programmers working on
non-conventional problems.
The first premise of Shapely is that Python programmers should be able to perform PostGIS type geometry operations
outside of an RDBMS. Not all geographic data originate or reside in a RDBMS or are best processed using SQL.
We can load data into a spatial RDBMS to do work, but if there’s no mandate to manage (the “M” in “RDBMS”)
the data over time in the database we’re using the wrong tool for the job. The second premise is that the persistence,
serialization, and map projection of features are significant, but orthogonal problems. You may not need a hundred
GIS format readers and writers or the multitude of State Plane projections, and Shapely doesn’t burden you with them.
The third premise is that Python idioms trump GIS (or Java, in this case, since the GEOS library is derived from JTS,
a Java project) idioms.
If you enjoy and profit from idiomatic Python, appreciate packages that do one thing well, and agree that a spatially
enabled RDBMS is often enough the wrong tool for your computational geometry job, Shapely might be for you.

Spatial Data Model

The fundamental types of geometric objects implemented by Shapely are points, curves, and surfaces. Each is associ-
ated with three sets of (possibly infinite) points in the plane. The interior, boundary, and exterior sets of a feature are
mutually exclusive and their union coincides with the entire plane2 .
• A Point has an interior set of exactly one point, a boundary set of exactly no points, and an exterior set of all
other points. A Point has a topological dimension of 0.
• A Curve has an interior set consisting of the infinitely many points along its length (imagine a Point dragged in
space), a boundary set consisting of its two end points, and an exterior set of all other points. A Curve has a
topological dimension of 1.
• A Surface has an interior set consisting of the infinitely many points within (imagine a Curve dragged in space to
cover an area), a boundary set consisting of one or more Curves, and an exterior set of all other points including
those within holes that might exist in the surface. A Surface has a topological dimension of 2.
That may seem a bit esoteric, but will help clarify the meanings of Shapely’s spatial predicates, and it’s as deep into
theory as this manual will go. Consequences of point-set theory, including some that manifest themselves as “gotchas”,
for different classes will be discussed later in this manual.
The point type is implemented by a Point class; curve by the LineString and LinearRing classes; and surface by a Poly-
gon class. Shapely implements no smooth (i.e. having continuous tangents) curves. All curves must be approximated
by linear splines. All rounded patches must be approximated by regions bounded by linear splines.
Collections of points are implemented by a MultiPoint class, collections of curves by a MultiLineString class, and
collections of surfaces by a MultiPolygon class. These collections aren’t computationally significant, but are use-
ful for modeling certain kinds of features. A Y-shaped line feature, for example, is well modeled as a whole by a
MultiLineString.
The standard data model has additional constraints specific to certain types of geometric objects that will be discussed
in following sections of this manual.
See also http://www.vividsolutions.com/jts/discussion.htm#spatialDataModel for more illustrations of this data model.
1 John R. Herring, Ed., “OpenGIS Implementation Specification for Geographic information - Simple feature access - Part 1: Common archi-

tecture,” Oct. 2006.

2 M.J. Egenhofer and John R. Herring, Categorizing Binary Topological Relations Between Regions, Lines, and Points in Geographic Databases,

Orono, ME: University of Maine, 1991.

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Relationships

The spatial data model is accompanied by a group of natural language relationships between geometric objects –
contains, intersects, overlaps, touches, etc. – and a theoretical framework for understanding them using the 3x3 matrix
of the mutual intersections of their component point sets2 : the DE-9IM. A comprehensive review of the relationships
in terms of the DE-9IM is found in4 and will not be reiterated in this manual.

Operations

Following the JTS technical specs5 , this manual will make a distinction between constructive (buffer, convex hull) and
set-theoretic operations (intersection, union, etc.). The individual operations will be fully described in a following
section of the manual.

Coordinate Systems

Even though the Earth is not flat – and for that matter not exactly spherical – there are many analytic problems that
can be approached by transforming Earth features to a Cartesian plane, applying tried and true algorithms, and then
transforming the results back to geographic coordinates. This practice is as old as the tradition of accurate paper maps.
Shapely does not support coordinate system transformations. All operations on two or more features presume that the
features exist in the same Cartesian plane.

1.2.2 Geometric Objects

Geometric objects are created in the typical Python fashion, using the classes themselves as instance factories. A
few of their intrinsic properties will be discussed in this sections, others in the following sections on operations and
serializations.
Instances of Point, LineString, and LinearRing have as their most important attribute a finite sequence of
coordinates that determines their interior, boundary, and exterior point sets. A line string can be determined by as few
as 2 points, but contains an infinite number of points. Coordinate sequences are immutable. A third z coordinate value
may be used when constructing instances, but has no effect on geometric analysis. All operations are performed in the
x-y plane.
In all constructors, numeric values are converted to type float. In other words, Point(0, 0) and Point(0.0,
0.0) produce geometrically equivalent instances. Shapely does not check the topological simplicity or validity of in-
stances when they are constructed as the cost is unwarranted in most cases. Validating factories are easily implemented
using the :attr:is_valid predicate by users that require them.

Note: Shapely is a planar geometry library and z, the height above or below the plane, is ignored in geometric analysis.
There is a potential pitfall for users here: coordinate tuples that differ only in z are not distinguished from each other
and their application can result in suprisingly invalid geometry objects. For example, LineString([(0, 0, 0),
(0, 0, 1)]) does not return a vertical line of unit length, but an invalid line in the plane with zero length. Similarly,
Polygon([(0, 0, 0), (0, 0, 1), (1, 1, 1)]) is not bounded by a closed ring and is invalid.

4 C. Strobl, “Dimensionally Extended Nine-Intersection Model (DE-9IM),” Encyclopedia of GIS, S. Shekhar and H. Xiong, Eds., Springer,

2008, pp. 240-245. [PDF]

5 Martin Davis, “JTS Technical Specifications,” Mar. 2003. [PDF]

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General Attributes and Methods

object.area
Returns the area (float) of the object.
object.bounds
Returns a (minx, miny, maxx, maxy) tuple (float values) that bounds the object.
object.length
Returns the length (float) of the object.
object.geom_type
Returns a string specifying the Geometry Type of the object in accordance with1 .

>>> print Point(0, 0).geom_type

Point

object.distance(other)
Returns the minimum distance (float) to the other geometric object.

>>> Point(0,0).distance(Point(1,1))
1.4142135623730951

object.hausdorff_distance(other)
Returns the Hausdorff distance (float) to the other geometric object. The Hausdorff distance is the furthest
distance from any point on the first geometry to any point on the second geometry.
New in Shapely 1.6.0

>>> point = Point(1, 1)

>>> line = LineString([(2, 0), (2, 4), (3, 4)])
>>> point.hausdorff_distance(line)
3.605551275463989
>>> point.distance(Point(3, 4))
3.605551275463989

object.representative_point()
Returns a cheaply computed point that is guaranteed to be within the geometric object.

Note: This is not in general the same as the centroid.

>>> donut = Point(0, 0).buffer(2.0).difference(Point(0, 0).buffer(1.0))

>>> donut.centroid.wkt
'POINT (-0.0000000000000001 -0.0000000000000000)'
>>> donut.representative_point().wkt
'POINT (-1.5000000000000000 0.0000000000000000)'

Points

class Point(coordinates)
The Point constructor takes positional coordinate values or point tuple parameters.

>>> from shapely.geometry import Point

>>> point = Point(0.0, 0.0)
>>> q = Point((0.0, 0.0))

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A Point has zero area and zero length.

>>> point.area
0.0
>>> point.length
0.0

Its x-y bounding box is a (minx, miny, maxx, maxy) tuple.

>>> point.bounds
(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0)

Coordinate values are accessed via coords, x, y, and z properties.

>>> list(point.coords)
[(0.0, 0.0)]
>>> point.x
0.0
>>> point.y
0.0

Coordinates may also be sliced. New in version 1.2.14.

>>> point.coords[:]
[(0.0, 0.0)]

The Point constructor also accepts another Point instance, thereby making a copy.

>>> Point(point)
<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>

LineStrings

class LineString(coordinates)
The LineString constructor takes an ordered sequence of 2 or more (x, y[, z]) point tuples.
The constructed LineString object represents one or more connected linear splines between the points. Repeated points
in the ordered sequence are allowed, but may incur performance penalties and should be avoided. A LineString may
cross itself (i.e. be complex and not simple).
Figure 1. A simple LineString on the left, a complex LineString on the right. The (MultiPoint) boundary of each is
shown in black, the other points that describe the lines are shown in grey.
A LineString has zero area and non-zero length.

>>> from shapely.geometry import LineString

>>> line = LineString([(0, 0), (1, 1)])
>>> line.area
0.0
>>> line.length
1.4142135623730951

Its x-y bounding box is a (minx, miny, maxx, maxy) tuple.

>>> line.bounds
(0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0)

The defining coordinate values are accessed via the coords property.

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a) simple b) complex
3 3

2 2

1 1

0 0

1 1
1 0 1 2 3 4 2 1 0 1 2 3

>>> len(line.coords)
2
>>> list(line.coords)
[(0.0, 0.0), (1.0, 1.0)]

Coordinates may also be sliced. New in version 1.2.14.

>>> point.coords[:]
[(0.0, 0.0), (1.0, 1.0)]
>>> point.coords[1:]
[(1.0, 1.0)]

The constructor also accepts another LineString instance, thereby making a copy.

>>> LineString(line)
<shapely.geometry.linestring.LineString object at 0x...>

A LineString may also be constructed using a a sequence of mixed Point instances or coordinate tuples. The individual
coordinates are copied into the new object.

>>> LineString([Point(0.0, 1.0), (2.0, 3.0), Point(4.0, 5.0)])

<shapely.geometry.linestring.LineString object at 0x...>

LinearRings

class LinearRing(coordinates)
The LinearRing constructor takes an ordered sequence of (x, y[, z]) point tuples.

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The sequence may be explicitly closed by passing identical values in the first and last indices. Otherwise, the sequence
will be implicitly closed by copying the first tuple to the last index. As with a LineString, repeated points in the ordered
sequence are allowed, but may incur performance penalties and should be avoided. A LinearRing may not cross itself,
and may not touch itself at a single point.
Figure 2. A valid LinearRing on the left, an invalid self-touching LinearRing on the right. The points that describe the
rings are shown in grey. A ring’s boundary is empty.

Note: Shapely will not prevent the creation of such rings, but exceptions will be raised when they are operated on.

A LinearRing has zero area and non-zero length.

>>> from shapely.geometry.polygon import LinearRing

>>> ring = LinearRing([(0, 0), (1, 1), (1, 0)])
>>> ring.area
0.0
>>> ring.length
3.4142135623730949

Its x-y bounding box is a (minx, miny, maxx, maxy) tuple.

>>> ring.bounds
(0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0)

Defining coordinate values are accessed via the coords property.

>>> len(ring.coords)
4
>>> list(ring.coords)
[(0.0, 0.0), (1.0, 1.0), (1.0, 0.0), (0.0, 0.0)]

The LinearRing constructor also accepts another LineString or LinearRing instance, thereby making a copy.

>>> LinearRring(ring)
<shapely.geometry.polygon.LinearRing object at 0x...>

As with LineString, a sequence of Point instances is not a valid constructor parameter.

Polygons

class Polygon(shell[, holes=None ])

The Polygon constructor takes two positional parameters. The first is an ordered sequence of (x, y[, z])
point tuples and is treated exactly as in the LinearRing case. The second is an optional unordered sequence of
ring-like sequences specifying the interior boundaries or “holes” of the feature.
Rings of a valid Polygon may not cross each other, but may touch at a single point only. Again, Shapely will not
prevent the creation of invalid features, but exceptions will be raised when they are operated on.
Figure 3. On the left, a valid Polygon with one interior ring that touches the exterior ring at one point, and on the
right a Polygon that is invalid because its interior ring touches the exterior ring at more than one point. The points that
describe the rings are shown in grey.
Figure 4. On the left, a Polygon that is invalid because its exterior and interior rings touch along a line, and on the
right, a Polygon that is invalid because its interior rings touch along a line.
A Polygon has non-zero area and non-zero length.

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>>> from shapely.geometry import Polygon

>>> polygon = Polygon([(0, 0), (1, 1), (1, 0)])
>>> polygon.area
0.5
>>> polygon.length
3.4142135623730949

Its x-y bounding box is a (minx, miny, maxx, maxy) tuple.

>>> polygon.bounds
(0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0)

Component rings are accessed via exterior and interiors properties.

>>> list(polygon.exterior.coords)
[(0.0, 0.0), (1.0, 1.0), (1.0, 0.0), (0.0, 0.0)]
>>> list(polygon.interiors)
[]

The Polygon constructor also accepts instances of LineString and LinearRing.

>>> coords = [(0, 0), (1, 1), (1, 0)]

>>> r = LinearRing(coords)
>>> s = Polygon(r)
>>> s.area
0.5
>>> t = Polygon(s.buffer(1.0).exterior, [r])
>>> t.area
6.5507620529190334

Rectangular polygons occur commonly, and can be conveniently constructed using the shapely.geometry.
box() function.
shapely.geometry.box(minx, miny, maxx, maxy, ccw=True)
Makes a rectangular polygon from the provided bounding box values, with counter-clockwise order by default.
New in version 1.2.9.
For example:

>>> from shapely.geometry import box

>>> b = box(0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0)
>>> b
<shapely.geometry.polygon.Polygon object at 0x...>
>>> list(b.exterior.coords)
[(1.0, 0.0), (1.0, 1.0), (0.0, 1.0), (0.0, 0.0), (1.0, 0.0)]

This is the first appearance of an explicit polygon handedness in Shapely.

To obtain a polygon with a known orientation, use shapely.geometry.polygon.orient():
shapely.geometry.polygon.orient(polygon, sign=1.0)
Returns a properly oriented copy of the given polygon. The signed area of the result will have the given sign. A
sign of 1.0 means that the coordinates of the product’s exterior ring will be oriented counter-clockwise.
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Collections

Heterogeneous collections of geometric objects may result from some Shapely operations. For example, two
LineStrings may intersect along a line and at a point. To represent these kind of results, Shapely provides frozenset-like,
immutable collections of geometric objects. The collections may be homogeneous (MultiPoint etc.) or heterogeneous.

>>> a = LineString([(0, 0), (1, 1), (1,2), (2,2)])

>>> b = LineString([(0, 0), (1, 1), (2,1), (2,2)])
>>> x = a.intersection(b)
>>> x
<shapely.geometry.collection.GeometryCollection object at 0x...>
>>> from pprint import pprint
>>> pprint(list(x))
[<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>,
<shapely.geometry.linestring.LineString object at 0x...>]

Figure 5. a) a green and a yellow line that intersect along a line and at a single point; b) the intersection (in blue) is a
collection containing one LineString and one Point.
Members of a GeometryCollection are accessed via the geoms property or via the iterator protocol using in or
list().

>>> pprint(list(x.geoms))
[<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>,
<shapely.geometry.linestring.LineString object at 0x...>]
>>> pprint(list(x))
[<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>,
<shapely.geometry.linestring.LineString object at 0x...>]

Homogeneous collections can also be sliced, resulting in a new object of the same type.

>>> from shapely.geometry import MultiPoint

>>> m = MultiPoint([(0, 0), (1, 1), (1,2), (2,2)])
>>> m[:1].wkt
'MULTIPOINT (0.0000000000000000 0.0000000000000000)'
>>> m[3:].wkt
'MULTIPOINT (2.0000000000000000 2.0000000000000000)'
>>> m[4:].wkt
'GEOMETRYCOLLECTION EMPTY'

New in version 1.2.14.

Note: When possible, it is better to use one of the homogeneous collection types described below.

Collections of Points

class MultiPoint(points)
The MultiPoint constructor takes a sequence of (x, y[, z ]) point tuples.
A MultiPoint has zero area and zero length.

>>> from shapely.geometry import MultiPoint

>>> points = MultiPoint([(0.0, 0.0), (1.0, 1.0)])
>>> points.area
0.0
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>>> points.length
0.0

Its x-y bounding box is a (minx, miny, maxx, maxy) tuple.

>>> points.bounds
(0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0)

Members of a multi-point collection are accessed via the geoms property or via the iterator protocol using in or
list().

>>> import pprint

>>> pprint.pprint(list(points.geoms))
[<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>,
<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>]
>>> pprint.pprint(list(points))
[<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>,
<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>]

The constructor also accepts another MultiPoint instance or an unordered sequence of Point instances, thereby making
copies.

>>> MultiPoint([Point(0, 0), Point(1, 1)])

<shapely.geometry.multipoint.MultiPoint object at 0x...>

Collections of Lines

class MultiLineString(lines)
The MultiLineString constructor takes a sequence of line-like sequences or objects.
Figure 6. On the left, a simple, disconnected MultiLineString, and on the right, a non-simple MultiLineString. The
points defining the objects are shown in gray, the boundaries of the objects in black.
A MultiLineString has zero area and non-zero length.

>>> from shapely.geometry import MultiLineString

>>> coords = [((0, 0), (1, 1)), ((-1, 0), (1, 0))]
>>> lines = MultiLineString(coords)
>>> lines.area
0.0
>>> lines.length
3.4142135623730949

Its x-y bounding box is a (minx, miny, maxx, maxy) tuple.

>>> lines.bounds
(-1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0)

Its members are instances of LineString and are accessed via the geoms property or via the iterator protocol using in
or list().

>>> len(lines.geoms)
2
>>> pprint.pprint(list(lines.geoms))
[<shapely.geometry.linestring.LineString object at 0x...>,
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<shapely.geometry.linestring.LineString object at 0x...>]
>>> pprint.pprint(list(lines))
[<shapely.geometry.linestring.LineString object at 0x...>,
<shapely.geometry.linestring.LineString object at 0x...>]

The constructor also accepts another instance of MultiLineString or an unordered sequence of LineString instances,
thereby making copies.

>>> MultiLineString(lines)
<shapely.geometry.multilinestring.MultiLineString object at 0x...>
>>> MultiLineString(lines.geoms)
<shapely.geometry.multilinestring.MultiLineString object at 0x...>

Collections of Polygons

class MultiPolygon(polygons)
The MultiPolygon constructor takes a sequence of exterior ring and hole list tuples: [((a1, . . . , aM), [(b1, . . . ,
bN), . . . ]), . . . ].
More clearly, the constructor also accepts an unordered sequence of Polygon instances, thereby making copies.

>>> polygons = MultiPolygon([polygon, s, t])

>>> len(polygons.geoms)
3

Figure 7. On the left, a valid MultiPolygon with 2 members, and on the right, a MultiPolygon that is invalid because
its members touch at an infinite number of points (along a line).
Its x-y bounding box is a (minx, miny, maxx, maxy) tuple.

>>> polygons.bounds
(-1.0, -1.0, 2.0, 2.0)

Its members are instances of Polygon and are accessed via the geoms property or via the iterator protocol using in
or list().

>>> len(polygons.geoms)
3
>>> len(polygons)
3

Empty features

An “empty” feature is one with a point set that coincides with the empty set; not None, but like set([]). Empty
features can be created by calling the various constructors with no arguments. Almost no operations are supported by
empty features.

>>> line = LineString()

>>> line.is_empty
True
>>> line.length
0.0
>>> line.bounds
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()
>>> line.coords
[]

The coordinates of a empty feature can be set, after which the geometry is no longer empty.
>>> line.coords = [(0, 0), (1, 1)]
>>> line.is_empty
False
>>> line.length
1.4142135623730951
>>> line.bounds
(0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0)

Linear Referencing Methods

It can be useful to specify position along linear features such as LineStrings and MultiLineStrings with a 1-dimensional
referencing system. Shapely supports linear referencing based on length or distance, evaluating the distance along a
geometric object to the projection of a given point, or the point at a given distance along the object.

Note: Linear referencing methods require GEOS 3.2.0 or later.

object.interpolate(distance[, normalized=False ])
Return a point at the specified distance along a linear geometric object.
If the normalized arg is True, the distance will be interpreted as a fraction of the geometric object’s length.
>>> ip = LineString([(0, 0), (0, 1), (1, 1)]).interpolate(1.5)
>>> ip
<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x740570>
>>> ip.wkt
'POINT (0.5000000000000000 1.0000000000000000)'
>>> LineString([(0, 0), (0, 1), (1, 1)]).interpolate(0.75, normalized=True).wkt
'POINT (0.5000000000000000 1.0000000000000000)'

object.project(other[, normalized=False ])
Returns the distance along this geometric object to a point nearest the other object.
If the normalized arg is True, return the distance normalized to the length of the object. The project() method is
the inverse of interpolate().
>>> LineString([(0, 0), (0, 1), (1, 1)]).project(ip)
1.5
>>> LineString([(0, 0), (0, 1), (1, 1)]).project(ip, normalized=True)
0.75

For example, the linear referencing methods might be used to cut lines at a specified distance.
def cut(line, distance):
# Cuts a line in two at a distance from its starting point
if distance <= 0.0 or distance >= line.length:
return [LineString(line)]
coords = list(line.coords)
for i, p in enumerate(coords):
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pd = line.project(Point(p))
if pd == distance:
return [
LineString(coords[:i+1]),
LineString(coords[i:])]
if pd > distance:
cp = line.interpolate(distance)
return [
LineString(coords[:i] + [(cp.x, cp.y)]),
LineString([(cp.x, cp.y)] + coords[i:])]

>>> line = LineString([(0, 0), (1, 0), (2, 0), (3, 0), (4, 0), (5, 0)])
>>> pprint([list(x.coords) for x in cut(line, 1.0)])
[[(0.0, 0.0), (1.0, 0.0)],
[(1.0, 0.0), (2.0, 0.0), (3.0, 0.0), (4.0, 0.0), (5.0, 0.0)]]
>>> pprint([list(x.coords) for x in cut(line, 2.5)])
[[(0.0, 0.0), (1.0, 0.0), (2.0, 0.0), (2.5, 0.0)],
[(2.5, 0.0), (3.0, 0.0), (4.0, 0.0), (5.0, 0.0)]]

1.2.3 Predicates and Relationships

Objects of the types explained in Geometric Objects provide standard1 predicates as attributes (for unary predicates)
and methods (for binary predicates). Whether unary or binary, all return True or False.

Unary Predicates

Standard unary predicates are implemented as read-only property attributes. An example will be shown for each.
object.has_z
Returns True if the feature has not only x and y, but also z coordinates for 3D (or so-called, 2.5D) geometries.

>>> Point(0, 0).has_z

False
>>> Point(0, 0, 0).has_z
True

object.is_ccw
Returns True if coordinates are in counter-clockwise order (bounding a region with positive signed area). This
method applies to LinearRing objects only.
New in version 1.2.10.

>>> LinearRing([(1,0), (1,1), (0,0)]).is_ccw

True

A ring with an undesired orientation can be reversed like this:

>>> ring = LinearRing([(0,0), (1,1), (1,0)])

>>> ring.is_ccw
False
>>> ring.coords = list(ring.coords)[::-1]
>>> ring.is_ccw
True

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object.is_empty
Returns True if the feature’s interior and boundary (in point set terms) coincide with the empty set.

>>> Point().is_empty
True
>>> Point(0, 0).is_empty
False

Note: With the help of the operator module’s attrgetter() function, unary predicates such as is_empty
can be easily used as predicates for the built in filter() or itertools.ifilter().

>>> from operator import attrgetter

>>> empties = filter(attrgetter('is_empty'), [Point(), Point(0, 0)])
>>> len(empties)
1

object.is_ring
Returns True if the feature is closed. A closed feature’s boundary coincides with the empty set.

>>> LineString([(0, 0), (1, 1), (1, -1)]).is_ring

False
>>> LinearRing([(0, 0), (1, 1), (1, -1)]).is_ring
True

This property is applicable to LineString and LinearRing instances, but meaningless for others.
object.is_simple
Returns True if the feature does not cross itself.

Note: The simplicity test is meaningful only for LineStrings and LinearRings.

>>> LineString([(0, 0), (1, 1), (1, -1), (0, 1)]).is_simple

False

Operations on non-simple LineStrings are fully supported by Shapely.

object.is_valid
Returns True if a feature is “valid” in the sense of1 .
A valid LinearRing may not cross itself or touch itself at a single point. A valid Polygon may not possess any overlap-
ping exterior or interior rings. A valid MultiPolygon may not collect any overlapping polygons. Operations on invalid
features may fail.

>>> MultiPolygon([Point(0, 0).buffer(2.0), Point(1, 1).buffer(2.0)]).is_valid

False

The two points above are close enough that the polygons resulting from the buffer operations (explained in a following
section) overlap.

Note: The is_valid predicate can be used to write a validating decorator that could ensure that only valid objects
are returned from a constructor function.

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from functools import wraps

def validate(func):
@wraps(func)
def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):
ob = func(*args, **kwargs)
if not ob.is_valid:
raise TopologicalError(
"Given arguments do not determine a valid geometric object")
return ob
return wrapper

>>> @validate
... def ring(coordinates):
... return LinearRing(coordinates)
...
>>> coords = [(0, 0), (1, 1), (1, -1), (0, 1)]
>>> ring(coords)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "<stdin>", line 7, in wrapper
shapely.geos.TopologicalError: Given arguments do not determine a valid geometric
˓→object

Binary Predicates

Standard binary predicates are implemented as methods. These predicates evaluate topological, set-theoretic relation-
ships. In a few cases the results may not be what one might expect starting from different assumptions. All take
another geometric object as argument and return True or False.
object.__eq__(other)
Returns True if the two objects are of the same geometric type, and the coordinates of the two objects match
precisely.
object.equals(other)
Returns True if the set-theoretic boundary, interior, and exterior of the object coincide with those of the other.
The coordinates passed to the object constructors are of these sets, and determine them, but are not the entirety of the
sets. This is a potential “gotcha” for new users. Equivalent lines, for example, can be constructed differently.

>>> a = LineString([(0, 0), (1, 1)])

>>> b = LineString([(0, 0), (0.5, 0.5), (1, 1)])
>>> c = LineString([(0, 0), (0, 0), (1, 1)])
>>> a.equals(b)
True
>>> a == b
False
>>> b.equals(c)
True
>>> b == c
False

object.almost_equals(other[, decimal=6 ])
Returns True if the object is approximately equal to the other at all points to specified decimal place precision.
object.contains(other)
Returns True if no points of other lie in the exterior of the object and at least one point of the interior of other
lies in the interior of object.

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This predicate applies to all types, and is inverse to within(). The expression a.contains(b) == b.
within(a) always evaluates to True.

>>> coords = [(0, 0), (1, 1)]

>>> LineString(coords).contains(Point(0.5, 0.5))
True
>>> Point(0.5, 0.5).within(LineString(coords))
True

A line’s endpoints are part of its boundary and are therefore not contained.

>>> LineString(coords).contains(Point(1.0, 1.0))

False

Note: Binary predicates can be used directly as predicates for filter() or itertools.ifilter().

>>> line = LineString(coords)

>>> contained = filter(line.contains, [Point(), Point(0.5, 0.5)])
>>> len(contained)
1
>>> [p.wkt for p in contained]
['POINT (0.5000000000000000 0.5000000000000000)']

object.crosses(other)
Returns True if the interior of the object intersects the interior of the other but does not contain it, and the
dimension of the intersection is less than the dimension of the one or the other.

>>> LineString(coords).crosses(LineString([(0, 1), (1, 0)]))

True

A line does not cross a point that it contains.

>>> LineString(coords).crosses(Point(0.5, 0.5))

False

object.disjoint(other)
Returns True if the boundary and interior of the object do not intersect at all with those of the other.

>>> Point(0, 0).disjoint(Point(1, 1))

True

This predicate applies to all types and is the inverse of intersects().

object.intersects(other)
Returns True if the boundary or interior of the object intersect in any way with those of the other.
In other words, geometric objects intersect if they have any boundary or interior point in common.
object.overlaps(other)
Returns True if the objects intersect (see above) but neither contains the other.
object.touches(other)
Returns True if the objects have at least one point in common and their interiors do not intersect with any part
of the other.
Overlapping features do not therefore touch, another potential “gotcha”. For example, the following lines touch at
(1, 1), but do not overlap.

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>>> a = LineString([(0, 0), (1, 1)])

>>> b = LineString([(1, 1), (2, 2)])
>>> a.touches(b)
True

object.within(other)
Returns True if the object’s boundary and interior intersect only with the interior of the other (not its boundary
or exterior).
This applies to all types and is the inverse of contains().
Used in a sorted() key, within() makes it easy to spatially sort objects. Let’s say we have 4 stereotypic features:
a point that is contained by a polygon which is itself contained by another polygon, and a free spirited point contained
by none

>>> a = Point(2, 2)
>>> b = Polygon([[1, 1], [1, 3], [3, 3], [3, 1]])
>>> c = Polygon([[0, 0], [0, 4], [4, 4], [4, 0]])
>>> d = Point(-1, -1)

and that copies of these are collected into a list

>>> features = [c, a, d, b, c]

that we’d prefer to have ordered as [d, c, c, b, a] in reverse containment order. As explained in the Python
Sorting HowTo, we can define a key function that operates on each list element and returns a value for comparison.
Our key function will be a wrapper class that implements __lt__() using Shapely’s binary within() predicate.

class Within(object):
def __init__(self, o):
self.o = o
def __lt__(self, other):
return self.o.within(other.o)

As the howto says, the less than comparison is guaranteed to be used in sorting. That’s what we’ll rely on to spatially
sort, and the reason why we use within() in reverse instead of contains(). Trying it out on features d and c,
we see that it works.

>>> d < c
True
>>> Within(d) < Within(c)
False

It also works on the list of features, producing the order we want.

>>> [d, c, c, b, a] == sorted(features, key=Within, reverse=True)

True

DE-9IM Relationships

The relate() method tests all the DE-9IM4 relationships between objects, of which the named relationship predi-
cates above are a subset.
object.relate(other)
Returns a string representation of the DE-9IM matrix of relationships between an object’s interior, boundary,
exterior and those of another geometric object.

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The named relationship predicates (contains(), etc.) are typically implemented as wrappers around relate().
Two different points have mainly F (false) values in their matrix; the intersection of their external sets (the 9th element)
is a 2 dimensional object (the rest of the plane). The intersection of the interior of one with the exterior of the other is
a 0 dimensional object (3rd and 7th elements of the matrix).

>>> Point(0, 0).relate(Point(1, 1))

'FF0FFF0F2'

The matrix for a line and a point on the line has more “true” (not F) elements.

>>> Point(0, 0).relate(LineString([(0, 0), (1, 1)]))

'F0FFFF102'

object.relate_pattern(other, pattern)
Returns True if the DE-9IM string code for the relationship between the geometries satisfies the pattern, other-
wise False.
The relate_pattern() compares the DE-9IM code string for two geometries against a specified pattern. If the
string matches the pattern then True is returned, otherwise False. The pattern specified can be an exact match (0,
1 or 2), a boolean match (T or F), or a wildcard (*). For example, the pattern for the within predicate is T*****FF*.

>> point = Point(0.5, 0.5)

>> square = Polygon([(0, 0), (0, 1), (1, 1), (1, 0)])
>> square.relate_pattern(point, 'T*****FF*')
True
>> point.within(square)
True

Note that the order or the geometries is significant, as demonstrated below. In this example the square contains the
point, but the point does not contain the square.

>>> point.relate(square)
'0FFFFF212'
>>> square.relate(point)
'0F2FF1FF2'

Further discussion of the DE-9IM matrix is beyond the scope of this manual. See4 and http://pypi.python.org/pypi/
de9im.

1.2.4 Spatial Analysis Methods

As well as boolean attributes and methods, Shapely provides analysis methods that return new geometric objects.

Set-theoretic Methods

Almost every binary predicate method has a counterpart that returns a new geometric object. In addition, the set-
theoretic boundary of an object is available as a read-only attribute.
object.boundary
Returns a lower dimensional object representing the object’s set-theoretic boundary.
The boundary of a polygon is a line, the boundary of a line is a collection of points. The boundary of a point is an
empty (null) collection.

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>> coords = [((0, 0), (1, 1)), ((-1, 0), (1, 0))]
>>> lines = MultiLineString(coords)
>>> lines.boundary
<shapely.geometry.multipoint.MultiPoint object at 0x...>
>>> pprint(list(lines.boundary))
[<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>,
<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>,
<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>,
<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>]
>>> lines.boundary.boundary
<shapely.geometry.collection.GeometryCollection object at 0x...>
>>> lines.boundary.boundary.is_empty
True

See the figures in LineStrings and Collections of Lines for the illustration of lines and their boundaries.
object.centroid
Returns a representation of the object’s geometric centroid (point).

>>> LineString([(0, 0), (1, 1)]).centroid

<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>
>>> LineString([(0, 0), (1, 1)]).centroid.wkt
'POINT (0.5000000000000000 0.5000000000000000)'

Note: The centroid of an object might be one of its points, but this is not guaranteed.

object.difference(other)
Returns a representation of the points making up this geometric object that do not make up the other object.

>>> a = Point(1, 1).buffer(1.5)

>>> b = Point(2, 1).buffer(1.5)
>>> a.difference(b)
<shapely.geometry.polygon.Polygon object at 0x...>

Note: The buffer() method is used to produce approximately circular polygons in the examples of this section; it
will be explained in detail later in this manual.

Figure 8. Differences between two approximately circular polygons.

Note: Shapely can not represent the difference between an object and a lower dimensional object (such as the
difference between a polygon and a line or point) as a single object, and in these cases the difference method returns a
copy of the object named self.

object.intersection(other)
Returns a representation of the intersection of this object with the other geometric object.

>>> a = Point(1, 1).buffer(1.5)

>>> b = Point(2, 1).buffer(1.5)
>>> a.intersection(b)
<shapely.geometry.polygon.Polygon object at 0x...>

See the figure under symmetric_difference() below.

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object.symmetric_difference(other)
Returns a representation of the points in this object not in the other geometric object, and the points in the other
not in this geometric object.

>>> a = Point(1, 1).buffer(1.5)

>>> b = Point(2, 1).buffer(1.5)
>>> a.symmetric_difference(b)
<shapely.geometry.multipolygon.MultiPolygon object at ...>

object.union(other)
Returns a representation of the union of points from this object and the other geometric object.
The type of object returned depends on the relationship between the operands. The union of polygons (for example)
will be a polygon or a multi-polygon depending on whether they intersect or not.

>>> a = Point(1, 1).buffer(1.5)

>>> b = Point(2, 1).buffer(1.5)
>>> a.union(b)
<shapely.geometry.polygon.Polygon object at 0x...>

The semantics of these operations vary with type of geometric object. For example, compare the boundary of the
union of polygons to the union of their boundaries.

>>> a.union(b).boundary
<shapely.geometry.polygon.LinearRing object at 0x...>
>>> a.boundary.union(b.boundary)
<shapely.geometry.multilinestring.MultiLineString object at 0x...>

Note: union() is an expensive way to find the cumulative union of many objects. See shapely.ops.
cascaded_union() for a more effective method.

Constructive Methods

Shapely geometric object have several methods that yield new objects not derived from set-theoretic analysis.
object.buffer(distance, resolution=16, cap_style=1, join_style=1, mitre_limit=5.0)
Returns an approximate representation of all points within a given distance of the this geometric object.
The styles of caps are specified by integer values: 1 (round), 2 (flat), 3 (square). These values are also enumer-
ated by the object shapely.geometry.CAP_STYLE (see below).
The styles of joins between offset segments are specified by integer values: 1 (round), 2 (mitre), and 3 (bevel).
These values are also enumerated by the object shapely.geometry.JOIN_STYLE (see below).
shapely.geometry.CAP_STYLE

Attribute Value
round 1
flat 2
square 3

shapely.geometry.JOIN_STYLE

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Attribute Value
round 1
mitre 2
bevel 3

>>> from shapely.geometry import CAP_STYLE, JOIN_STYLE

>>> CAP_STYLE.flat
2
>>> JOIN_STYLE.bevel
3

A positive distance has an effect of dilation; a negative distance, erosion. The optional resolution argument determines
the number of segments used to approximate a quarter circle around a point.

>>> line = LineString([(0, 0), (1, 1), (0, 2), (2, 2), (3, 1), (1, 0)])
>>> dilated = line.buffer(0.5)
>>> eroded = dilated.buffer(-0.3)

Figure 9. Dilation of a line (left) and erosion of a polygon (right). New object is shown in blue.
The default (resolution of 16) buffer of a point is a polygonal patch with 99.8% of the area of the circular disk it
approximates.

>>> p = Point(0, 0).buffer(10.0)

>>> len(p.exterior.coords)
66
>>> p.area
313.65484905459385

With a resolution of 1, the buffer is a square patch.

>>> q = Point(0, 0).buffer(10.0, 1)

>>> len(q.exterior.coords)
5
>>> q.area
200.0

Passed a distance of 0, buffer() can sometimes be used to “clean” self-touching or self-crossing polygons such as
the classic “bowtie”. Users have reported that very small distance values sometimes produce cleaner results than 0.
Your mileage may vary when cleaning surfaces.

>>> coords = [(0, 0), (0, 2), (1, 1), (2, 2), (2, 0), (1, 1), (0, 0)]
>>> bowtie = Polygon(coords)
>>> bowtie.is_valid
False
>>> clean = bowtie.buffer(0)
>>> clean.is_valid
True
>>> clean
<shapely.geometry.multipolygon.MultiPolygon object at ...>
>>> len(clean)
2
>>> list(clean[0].exterior.coords)
[(0.0, 0.0), (0.0, 2.0), (1.0, 1.0), (0.0, 0.0)]
>>> list(clean[1].exterior.coords)
[(1.0, 1.0), (2.0, 2.0), (2.0, 0.0), (1.0, 1.0)]

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Buffering splits the polygon in two at the point where they touch.
object.convex_hull
Returns a representation of the smallest convex Polygon containing all the points in the object unless the number
of points in the object is less than three. For two points, the convex hull collapses to a LineString; for 1, a Point.

>>> Point(0, 0).convex_hull

<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>
>>> MultiPoint([(0, 0), (1, 1)]).convex_hull
<shapely.geometry.linestring.LineString object at 0x...>
>>> MultiPoint([(0, 0), (1, 1), (1, -1)]).convex_hull
<shapely.geometry.polygon.Polygon object at 0x...>

Figure 10. Convex hull (blue) of 2 points (left) and of 6 points (right).
object.envelope
Returns a representation of the point or smallest rectangular polygon (with sides parallel to the coordinate axes)
that contains the object.

>>> Point(0, 0).envelope

<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>
>>> MultiPoint([(0, 0), (1, 1)]).envelope
<shapely.geometry.polygon.Polygon object at 0x...>

object.minimum_rotated_rectangle
Returns the general minimum bounding rectangle that contains the object. Unlike envelope this rectangle is not
constrained to be parallel to the coordinate axes. If the convex hull of the object is a degenerate (line or point)
this degenerate is returned.
New in Shapely 1.6.0

>>> Point(0, 0).minimum_rotated_rectangle

<shapely.geometry.point.Point object at 0x...>
>>> MultiPoint([(0,0),(1,1),(2,0.5)]).minimum_rotated_rectangle
<shapely.geometry.polygon.Polygon object at 0x...>

Figure 11. Minimum rotated rectangle for a multipoint feature (left) and a linestring feature (right).
object.parallel_offset(distance, side, resolution=16, join_style=1, mitre_limit=5.0)
Returns a LineString or MultiLineString geometry at a distance from the object on its right or its left side.
Distance must be a positive float value. The side parameter may be ‘left’ or ‘right’. The resolution of the offset
around each vertex of the object is parameterized as in the buffer method.
The join style is for outside corners between line segments. Accepted integer values are 1 (round), 2 (mitre),
and 3 (bevel). See also shapely.geometry.JOIN_STYLE.
Severely mitered corners can be controlled by the mitre_limit parameter (spelled in British English, en-gb). The
ratio of the distance from the corner to the end of the mitred offset corner is the miter ratio. Corners with a ratio
which exceed the limit will be beveled.

Note: This method is only available for LinearRing and LineString objects.

Figure 12. Three styles of parallel offset lines on the left side of a simple line string (its starting point shown as a
circle) and one offset on the right side, a multipart.
The effect of the mitre_limit parameter is shown below.
Figure 13. Large and small mitre_limit values for left and right offsets.

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object.simplify(tolerance, preserve_topology=True)
Returns a simplified representation of the geometric object.
All points in the simplified object will be within the tolerance distance of the original geometry. By default a slower
algorithm is used that preserves topology. If preserve topology is set to False the much quicker Douglas-Peucker
algorithm6 is used.
>>> p = Point(0.0, 0.0)
>>> x = p.buffer(1.0)
>>> x.area
3.1365484905459389
>>> len(x.exterior.coords)
66
>>> s = x.simplify(0.05, preserve_topology=False)
>>> s.area
3.0614674589207187
>>> len(s.exterior.coords)
17

Figure 14. Simplification of a nearly circular polygon using a tolerance of 0.2 (left) and 0.5 (right).

Note: Invalid geometric objects may result from simplification that does not preserve topology and simplification
may be sensitive to the order of coordinates: two geometries differing only in order of coordinates may be simplified
differently.

1.2.5 Affine Transformations

A collection of affine transform functions are in the shapely.affinity module, which return transformed ge-
ometries by either directly supplying coefficients to an affine transformation matrix, or by using a specific, named
transform (rotate, scale, etc.). The functions can be used with all geometry types (except GeometryCollection), and
3D types are either preserved or supported by 3D affine transformations.
New in version 1.2.17.
shapely.affinity.affine_transform(geom, matrix)
Returns a transformed geometry using an affine transformation matrix.
The coefficient matrix is provided as a list or tuple with 6 or 12 items for 2D or 3D transformations, respec-
tively.
For 2D affine transformations, the 6 parameter matrix is:
[a, b, d, e, xoff, yoff]
which represents the augmented matrix:
⎡ ⎤
[︀ ′ ]︀ 𝑎 𝑏 𝑥off
𝑦′
]︀ [︀
𝑥 1 = 𝑥 𝑦 1 ⎣𝑑 𝑒 𝑦off ⎦
0 0 1
or the equations for the transformed coordinates:
𝑥′ = 𝑎𝑥 + 𝑏𝑦 + 𝑥off
𝑦 ′ = 𝑑𝑥 + 𝑒𝑦 + 𝑦off .
For 3D affine transformations, the 12 parameter matrix is:
6 David H. Douglas and Thomas K. Peucker, “Algorithms for the Reduction of the Number of Points Required to Represent a Digitized Line or
its Caricature,” Cartographica: The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization, vol. 10, Dec. 1973, pp. 112-122.

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[a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, xoff, yoff, zoff]

which represents the augmented matrix:
⎡ ⎤
𝑎 𝑏 𝑐 𝑥off
[︀ ′ ]︀ ⎢𝑑 𝑒 𝑓 𝑦off ⎥
𝑦′ 𝑧′
]︀ [︀
𝑥 1 = 𝑥 𝑦 𝑧 1 ⎢ ⎣𝑔
⎥
ℎ 𝑖 𝑧off ⎦
0 0 0 1
or the equations for the transformed coordinates:
𝑥′ = 𝑎𝑥 + 𝑏𝑦 + 𝑐𝑧 + 𝑥off
𝑦 ′ = 𝑑𝑥 + 𝑒𝑦 + 𝑓 𝑧 + 𝑦off
𝑧 ′ = 𝑔𝑥 + ℎ𝑦 + 𝑖𝑧 + 𝑧off .

shapely.affinity.rotate(geom, angle, origin=’center’, use_radians=False)

Returns a rotated geometry on a 2D plane.
The angle of rotation can be specified in either degrees (default) or radians by setting use_radians=True.
Positive angles are counter-clockwise and negative are clockwise rotations.
The point of origin can be a keyword 'center' for the bounding box center (default), 'centroid' for the
geometry’s centroid, a Point object or a coordinate tuple (x0, y0).
The affine transformation matrix for 2D rotation with angle 𝜃 is:
⎡ ⎤
cos 𝜃 − sin 𝜃 𝑥off
⎣ sin 𝜃 cos 𝜃 𝑦off ⎦
0 0 1
where the offsets are calculated from the origin (𝑥0 , 𝑦0 ):
𝑥off = 𝑥0 − 𝑥0 cos 𝜃 + 𝑦0 sin 𝜃
𝑦off = 𝑦0 − 𝑥0 sin 𝜃 − 𝑦0 cos 𝜃

>>> from shapely import affinity

>>> line = LineString([(1, 3), (1, 1), (4, 1)])
>>> rotated_a = affinity.rotate(line, 90)
>>> rotated_b = affinity.rotate(line, 90, origin='centroid')

Figure 15. Rotation of a LineString (gray) by an angle of 90° counter-clockwise (blue) using different origins.
shapely.affinity.scale(geom, xfact=1.0, yfact=1.0, zfact=1.0, origin=’center’)
Returns a scaled geometry, scaled by factors along each dimension.
The point of origin can be a keyword 'center' for the 2D bounding box center (default), 'centroid' for
the geometry’s 2D centroid, a Point object or a coordinate tuple (x0, y0, z0).
Negative scale factors will mirror or reflect coordinates.
The general 3D affine transformation matrix for scaling is:
⎡ ⎤
𝑥fact 0 0 𝑥off
⎢ 0 𝑦fact 0 𝑦off ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎣ 0 0 𝑧fact 𝑧off ⎦
0 0 0 1
where the offsets are calculated from the origin (𝑥0 , 𝑦0 , 𝑧0 ):
𝑥off = 𝑥0 − 𝑥0 𝑥fact
𝑦off = 𝑦0 − 𝑦0 𝑦fact
𝑧off = 𝑧0 − 𝑧0 𝑧fact

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>>> triangle = Polygon([(1, 1), (2, 3), (3, 1)])

>>> triangle_a = affinity.scale(triangle, xfact=1.5, yfact=-1)
>>> triangle_a.exterior.coords[:]
[(0.5, 3.0), (2.0, 1.0), (3.5, 3.0), (0.5, 3.0)]
>>> triangle_b = affinity.scale(triangle, xfact=2, origin=(1,1))
>>> triangle_b.exterior.coords[:]
[(1.0, 1.0), (3.0, 3.0), (5.0, 1.0), (1.0, 1.0)]

Figure 16. Scaling of a gray triangle to blue result: a) by a factor of 1.5 along x-direction, with reflection across
y-axis; b) by a factor of 2 along x-direction with custom origin at (1, 1).
shapely.affinity.skew(geom, xs=0.0, ys=0.0, origin=’center’, use_radians=False)
Returns a skewed geometry, sheared by angles along x and y dimensions.
The shear angle can be specified in either degrees (default) or radians by setting use_radians=True.
The point of origin can be a keyword 'center' for the bounding box center (default), 'centroid' for the
geometry’s centroid, a Point object or a coordinate tuple (x0, y0).
The general 2D affine transformation matrix for skewing is:
⎡ ⎤
1 tan 𝑥𝑠 𝑥off
⎣tan 𝑦𝑠 1 𝑦off ⎦
0 0 1

where the offsets are calculated from the origin (𝑥0 , 𝑦0 ):

𝑥off = −𝑦0 tan 𝑥𝑠

𝑦off = −𝑥0 tan 𝑦𝑠

Figure 17. Skewing of a gray “R” to blue result: a) by a shear angle of 20° along the x-direction and an origin
at (1, 1); b) by a shear angle of 30° along the y-direction, using default origin.
shapely.affinity.translate(geom, xoff=0.0, yoff=0.0, zoff=0.0)
Returns a translated geometry shifted by offsets along each dimension.
The general 3D affine transformation matrix for translation is:
⎡ ⎤
1 0 0 𝑥off
⎢0 1 0 𝑦off ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎣0 0 1 𝑧off ⎦
0 0 0 1

1.2.6 Other Transformations

Shapely supports map projections and other arbitrary transformations of geometric objects.
shapely.ops.transform(func, geom)
Applies func to all coordinates of geom and returns a new geometry of the same type from the transformed
coordinates.
func maps x, y, and optionally z to output xp, yp, zp. The input parameters may iterable types like lists or arrays
or single values. The output shall be of the same type: scalars in, scalars out; lists in, lists out.
New in version 1.2.18.
For example, here is an identity function applicable to both types of input (scalar or array).

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def id_func(x, y, z=None):

return tuple(filter(None, [x, y, z]))

g2 = transform(id_func, g1)

A partially applied transform function from pyproj satisfies the requirements for func.

from shapely.ops import transform

from functools import partial
import pyproj

project = partial(
pyproj.transform,
pyproj.Proj(init='epsg:4326'),
pyproj.Proj(init='epsg:26913'))

g2 = transform(project, g1)

Lambda expressions such as the one in

g2 = transform(lambda x, y, z=None: (x+1.0, y+1.0), g1)

also satisfy the requirements for func.

1.2.7 Other Operations

Merging Linear Features

Sequences of touching lines can be merged into MultiLineStrings or Polygons using functions in the shapely.ops
module.
shapely.ops.polygonize(lines)
Returns an iterator over polygons constructed from the input lines.
As with the MultiLineString constructor, the input elements may be any line-like object.

>>> from shapely.ops import polygonize

>>> lines = [
... ((0, 0), (1, 1)),
... ((0, 0), (0, 1)),
... ((0, 1), (1, 1)),
... ((1, 1), (1, 0)),
... ((1, 0), (0, 0))
... ]
>>> pprint(list(polygonize(lines)))
[<shapely.geometry.polygon.Polygon object at 0x...>,
<shapely.geometry.polygon.Polygon object at 0x...>]

shapely.ops.polygonize_full(lines)
Creates polygons from a source of lines, returning the polygons and leftover geometries.
The source may be a MultiLineString, a sequence of LineString objects, or a sequence of objects than can be
adapted to LineStrings.
Returns a tuple of objects: (polygons, dangles, cut edges, invalid ring lines). Each are a geometry collection.

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Dangles are edges which have one or both ends which are not incident on another edge endpoint. Cut edges are
connected at both ends but do not form part of polygon. Invalid ring lines form rings which are invalid (bowties,
etc).
New in version 1.2.18.

>>> lines = [
... ((0, 0), (1, 1)),
... ((0, 0), (0, 1)),
... ((0, 1), (1, 1)),
... ((1, 1), (1, 0)),
... ((1, 0), (0, 0)),
... ((5, 5), (6, 6)),
... ((1, 1), (100, 100)),
... ]
>>> result, dangles, cuts, invalids = polygonize_full(lines)
>>> len(result)
2
>>> list(result.geoms)
[<shapely.geometry.polygon.Polygon object at ...>, <shapely.geometry.polygon.
˓→Polygon object at ...>]

>>> list(cuts.geoms)
[<shapely.geometry.linestring.LineString object at ...>, <shapely.geometry.
˓→linestring.LineString object at ...>]

shapely.ops.linemerge(lines)
Returns a LineString or MultiLineString representing the merger of all contiguous elements of lines.
As with shapely.ops.polygonize(), the input elements may be any line-like object.

>>> from shapely.ops import linemerge

>>> linemerge(lines)
<shapely.geometry.multilinestring.MultiLineString object at 0x...>
>>> pprint(list(linemerge(lines)))
[<shapely.geometry.linestring.LineString object at 0x...>,
<shapely.geometry.linestring.LineString object at 0x...>,
<shapely.geometry.linestring.LineString object at 0x...>]

Cascading Unions

The cascaded_union() function in shapely.ops is more efficient than accumulating with union().
shapely.ops.cascaded_union(geoms)
Returns a representation of the union of the given geometric objects.

>>> from shapely.ops import cascaded_union

>>> polygons = [Point(i, 0).buffer(0.7) for i in range(5)]
>>> cascaded_union(polygons)
<shapely.geometry.polygon.Polygon object at 0x...>

The function is particularly useful in dissolving MultiPolygons.

>>> m = MultiPolygon(polygons)
>>> m.area
7.6845438018375516
>>> cascaded_union(m).area
6.6103013551167971

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Note: In 1.2.16 shapely.ops.cascaded_union() is superceded by shapely.ops.

unary_union() if GEOS 3.2+ is used. The unary union function can operate on different geometry
types, not only polygons as is the case for the older cascaded unions.

shapely.ops.unary_union(geoms)
Returns a representation of the union of the given geometric objects.

Delaunay triangulation

The triangulate() function in shapely.ops calculates a Delaunay triangulation from a collection of points.

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0

0.5
0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5

shapely.ops.triangulate(geom, tolerance=0.0, edges=False)

Returns a Delaunary triangulation of the vertices of the input geometry.
The source may be any geometry type. All vertices of the geometry will be used as the points of the triangulation.
The tolerance keyword argument sets the snapping tolerance used to improve the robustness of the triangulation
computation. A tolerance of 0.0 specifies that no snapping will take place.
If the edges keyword argument is False a list of Polygon triangles will be returned. Otherwise a list of LineString
edges is returned.
New in version 1.4.0

>>> from shapely.ops import triangulate

>>> points = MultiPoint([(0, 0), (1, 1), (0, 2), (2, 2), (3, 1), (1, 0)])
>>> triangles = triangulate(points)
>>> pprint([triangle.wkt for triangle in triangles])
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['POLYGON ((0 2, 0 0, 1 1, 0 2))',
'POLYGON ((0 2, 1 1, 2 2, 0 2))',
'POLYGON ((2 2, 1 1, 3 1, 2 2))',
'POLYGON ((3 1, 1 1, 1 0, 3 1))',
'POLYGON ((1 0, 1 1, 0 0, 1 0))']

Nearest points

The nearest_points() function in shapely.ops calculates the nearest points in a pair of geometries.
shapely.ops.nearest_points(geom1, geom2)
Returns a tuple of the nearest points in the input geometries. The points are returned in the same order as the
input geometries.
New in version 1.4.0.
>>> from shapely.ops import nearest_points
>>> triangle = Polygon([(0, 0), (1, 0), (0.5, 1), (0, 0)])
>>> square = Polygon([(0, 2), (1, 2), (1, 3), (0, 3), (0, 2)])
>>> [o.wkt for o in nearest_points(triangle, square)]
['POINT (0.5 1)', 'POINT (0.5 2)']

Note that the nearest points may not be existing vertices in the geometries.

Snapping

The snap() function in shapely.ops snaps the vertices in one geometry to the vertices in a second geometry with a
given tolerance.
shapely.ops.snap(geom1, geom2, tolerance)
Snaps vertices in geom1 to vertices in the geom2. A copy of the snapped geometry is returned. The input
geometries are not modified.
The tolerance argument specifies the minimum distance between vertices for them to be snapped.
New in version 1.5.0
>>> from shapely.ops import snap
>>> square = Polygon([(1,1), (2, 1), (2, 2), (1, 2), (1, 1)])
>>> line = LineString([(0,0), (0.8, 0.8), (1.8, 0.95), (2.6, 0.5)])
>>> result = snap(line, square, 0.5)
>>> result.wkt
'LINESTRING (0 0, 1 1, 2 1, 2.6 0.5)'

Shared paths

The shared_paths() function in shapely.ops finds the shared paths between two lineal geometries.
shapely.ops.shared_paths(geom1, geom2)
Finds the shared paths between geom1 and geom2, where both geometries are LineStrings.
A GeometryCollection is returned with two elements. The first element is a MultiLineString containing shared
paths with the same direction for both inputs. The second element is a MultiLineString containing shared paths
with the opposite direction for the two inputs.
New in version 1.6.0

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>>> from shapely.ops import shared_paths

>>> g1 = LineString([(0, 0), (10, 0), (10, 5), (20, 5)])
>>> g2 = LineString([(5, 0), (30, 0), (30, 5), (0, 5)])
>>> forward, backward = shared_paths(g1, g2)
>>> forward.wkt
'MULTILINESTRING ((5 0, 10 0))'
>>> backward.wkt
'MULTILINESTRING ((10 5, 20 5))'

Splitting

The split() function in shapely.ops splits a geometry by another geometry.

shapely.ops.split(geom, splitter)
Splits a geometry by another geometry and returns a collection of geometries. This function is the theoretical
opposite of the union of the split geometry parts. If the splitter does not split the geometry, a collection with a
single geometry equal to the input geometry is returned.
The function supports:
• Splitting a (Multi)LineString by a (Multi)Point or (Multi)LineString or (Multi)Polygon boundary
• Splitting a (Multi)Polygon by a LineString
It may be convenient to snap the splitter with low tolerance to the geometry. For example in the case of splitting
a line by a point, the point must be exactly on the line, for the line to be correctly split. When splitting a line
by a polygon, the boundary of the polygon is used for the operation. When splitting a line by another line, a
ValueError is raised if the two overlap at some segment.
New in version 1.6.0

>>> pt = Point((1, 1))

>>> line = LineString([(0,0), (2,2)])
>>> result = split(line, pt)
>>> result.wkt
'GEOMETRYCOLLECTION (LINESTRING (0 0, 1 1), LINESTRING (1 1, 2 2))'

Prepared Geometry Operations

Shapely geometries can be processed into a state that supports more efficient batches of operations.
prepared.prep(ob)
Creates and returns a prepared geometric object.
To test one polygon containment against a large batch of points, one should first use the prepared.prep() func-
tion.

>>> from shapely.geometry import Point

>>> from shapely.prepared import prep
>>> points = [...] # large list of points
>>> polygon = Point(0.0, 0.0).buffer(1.0)
>>> prepared_polygon = prep(polygon)
>>> prepared_polygon
<shapely.prepared.PreparedGeometry object at 0x...>
>>> hits = filter(prepared_polygon.contains, points)

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Prepared geometries instances have the following methods: contains, contains_properly, covers, and
intersects. All have exactly the same arguments and usage as their counterparts in non-prepared geometric
objects.

Diagnostics

validation.explain_validity(ob):
Returns a string explaining the validity or invalidity of the object.
New in version 1.2.1.
The messages may or may not have a representation of a problem point that can be parsed out.

>>> coords = [(0, 0), (0, 2), (1, 1), (2, 2), (2, 0), (1, 1), (0, 0)]
>>> p = Polygon(coords)
>>> from shapely.validation import explain_validity
>>> explain_validity(p)
'Ring Self-intersection[1 1]'

The Shapely version, GEOS library version, and GEOS C API version are accessible via shapely.__version__,
shapely.geos.geos_version_string, and shapely.geos.geos_capi_version.

>>> import shapely

>>> shapely.__version__
'1.3.0'
>>> import shapely.geos
>>> shapely.geos.geos_version
(3, 3, 0)
>>> shapely.geos.geos_version_string
'3.3.0-CAPI-1.7.0'

1.2.8 STR-packed R-tree

Shapely provides an interface to the query-only GEOS R-tree packed using the Sort-Tile-Recursive algorithm. Pass
a list of geometry objects to the STRtree constructor to create an R-tree that you can query with another geometric
object.
class strtree.STRtree(geometries)
The STRtree constructor takes a sequence of geometric objects.
These are copied and stored in the R-tree.
New in version 1.4.0.
Query-only means in this case that the R-tree, once created, is immutable. You cannot add or remove geometries.

>>> from shapely.geometry import Point

>>> from shapely.strtree import STRtree
>>> points = [Point(i, i) for i in range(10)]
>>> tree = STRtree(points)
>>> tree.query(Point(2,2).buffer(0.99))
>>> [o.wkt for o in tree.query(Point(2,2).buffer(0.99))]
['POINT (2 2)']
>>> [o.wkt for o in tree.query(Point(2,2).buffer(1.0))]
['POINT (1 1)', 'POINT (2 2)', 'POINT (3 3)']

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1.2.9 Interoperation

Shapely provides 4 avenues for interoperation with other software.

Well-Known Formats

A Well Known Text (WKT) or Well Known Binary (WKB) representation1 of any geometric object can be had via
its wkt or wkb attribute. These representations allow interchange with many GIS programs. PostGIS, for example,
trades in hex-encoded WKB.

>>> Point(0, 0).wkt

'POINT (0.0000000000000000 0.0000000000000000)'
>>> Point(0, 0).wkb.encode('hex')
'010100000000000000000000000000000000000000'

The shapely.wkt and shapely.wkb modules provide dumps() and loads() functions that work almost exactly as their
pickle and simplejson module counterparts. To serialize a geometric object to a binary or text string, use dumps().
To deserialize a string and get a new geometric object of the appropriate type, use loads().
shapely.wkb.dumps(ob)
Returns a WKB representation of ob.
shapely.wkb.loads(wkb)
Returns a geometric object from a WKB representation wkb.

>> from shapely.wkb import dumps, loads

>>> wkb = dumps(Point(0, 0))
>>> print wkb.encode('hex')
010100000000000000000000000000000000000000
>>> loads(wkb).wkt
'POINT (0.0000000000000000 0.0000000000000000)'

All of Shapely’s geometry types are supported by these functions.

shapely.wkt.dumps(ob)
Returns a WKT representation of ob.
shapely.wkt.loads(wkt)
Returns a geometric object from a WKT representation wkt.

>> wkt = dumps(Point(0, 0))

>>> print wkt
POINT (0.0000000000000000 0.0000000000000000)
>>> loads(wkt).wkt
'POINT (0.0000000000000000 0.0000000000000000)'

Numpy and Python Arrays

All geometric objects with coordinate sequences (Point, LinearRing, LineString) provide the Numpy array interface
and can thereby be converted or adapted to Numpy arrays.

>>> from numpy import array

>>> array(Point(0, 0))
array([ 0., 0.])
>>> array(LineString([(0, 0), (1, 1)]))
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array([[ 0., 0.],
[ 1., 1.]])

The numpy.asarray() function does not copy coordinate values – at the price of slower Numpy access to the
coordinates of Shapely objects.

Note: The Numpy array interface is provided without a dependency on Numpy itself.

The coordinates of the same types of geometric objects can be had as standard Python arrays of x and y values via the
xy attribute.

>>> Point(0, 0).xy

(array('d', [0.0]), array('d', [0.0]))
>>> LineString([(0, 0), (1, 1)]).xy
(array('d', [0.0, 1.0]), array('d', [0.0, 1.0]))

The shapely.geometry.asShape() family of functions can be used to wrap Numpy coordinate arrays so that
they can then be analyzed using Shapely while maintaining their original storage. A 1 x 2 array can be adapted to a
point

>>> from shapely.geometry import asPoint

>>> pa = asPoint(array([0.0, 0.0]))
>>> pa.wkt
'POINT (0.0000000000000000 0.0000000000000000)'

and a N x 2 array can be adapted to a line string

>>> from shapely.geometry import asLineString

>>> la = asLineString(array([[1.0, 2.0], [3.0, 4.0]]))
>>> la.wkt
'LINESTRING (1.0000000000000000 2.0000000000000000, 3.0000000000000000 4.
˓→0000000000000000)'

There is no Numpy array representation of a polygon.

Python Geo Interface

Any object that provides the GeoJSON-like Python geo interface can be adapted and used as a Shapely geometry using
the shapely.geometry.asShape() or shapely.geometry.shape() functions.
shapely.geometry.asShape(context)
Adapts the context to a geometry interface. The coordinates remain stored in the context.
shapely.geometry.shape(context)
Returns a new, independent geometry with coordinates copied from the context.
For example, a dictionary:

>>> from shapely.geometry import shape

>>> data = {"type": "Point", "coordinates": (0.0, 0.0)}
>>> geom = shape(data)
>>> geom.geom_type
'Point'
>>> list(geom.coords)
[(0.0, 0.0)]

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Or a simple placemark-type object:

>>> class GeoThing(object):

... def __init__(self, d):
... self.__geo_interface__ = d
>>> thing = GeoThing({"type": "Point", "coordinates": (0.0, 0.0)})
>>> geom = shape(thing)
>>> geom.geom_type
'Point'
>>> list(geom.coords)
[(0.0, 0.0)]

The GeoJSON-like mapping of a geometric object can be obtained using shapely.geometry.mapping().

shapely.geometry.mapping(ob)
Returns a new, independent geometry with coordinates copied from the context.
New in version 1.2.3.
For example, using the same GeoThing class:

>>> from shapely.geometry import mapping

>>> thing = GeoThing({"type": "Point", "coordinates": (0.0, 0.0)})
>>> m = mapping(thing)
>>> m['type']
'Point'
>>> m['coordinates']
(0.0, 0.0)}

1.2.10 Performance

Shapely uses the GEOS library for all operations. GEOS is written in C++ and used in many applications and you
can expect that all operations are highly optimized. The creation of new geometries with many coordinates, however,
involves some overhead that might slow down your code.
New in version 1.2.10.
The shapely.speedups module contains performance enhancements written in C. They are automatically in-
stalled when Python has access to a compiler and GEOS development headers during installation.
You can check if the speedups are installed with the available attribute. To enable the speedups call enable().
You can revert to the default implementation with disable().

>>> from shapely import speedups

>>> speedups.available
True
>>> speedups.enable()

New in version 1.6.0.

Speedups are now enabled by default if they are available. You can check if speedups are enabled with the enabled
attribute.

>>> from shapely import speedups

>>> speedups.enabled
True

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1.2.11 Conclusion

We hope that you will enjoy and profit from using Shapely. Questions and comments are welcome on the GIS-Python
email list. This manual will be updated and improved regularly. Its source is available at http://github.com/Toblerity/
Shapely/tree/master/docs/.

1.2.12 References

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 CHAPTER 2

Indices and tables

• genindex
• search

53
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54 Chapter 2. Indices and tables

 Index

Symbols is_ccw (object attribute), 29

__eq__() (object method), 31 is_empty (object attribute), 29
is_ring (object attribute), 30
A is_simple (object attribute), 30
is_valid (object attribute), 30
almost_equals() (object method), 31
area (object attribute), 20
L
B length (object attribute), 20
LinearRing (built-in class), 22
boundary (object attribute), 34
LineString (built-in class), 21
bounds (object attribute), 20
buffer() (object method), 36
M
C minimum_rotated_rectangle (object attribute), 38
MultiLineString (built-in class), 26
centroid (object attribute), 35
MultiPoint (built-in class), 25
contains() (object method), 31
MultiPolygon (built-in class), 27
convex_hull (object attribute), 38
crosses() (object method), 32
O
D overlaps() (object method), 32
difference() (object method), 35 P
disjoint() (object method), 32
distance() (object method), 20 parallel_offset() (object method), 38
Point (built-in class), 20
E Polygon (built-in class), 23
prepared.prep() (built-in function), 46
envelope (object attribute), 38
project() (object method), 28
equals() (object method), 31

G R
relate() (object method), 33
geom_type (object attribute), 20 relate_pattern() (object method), 34
representative_point() (object method), 20
H
has_z (object attribute), 29 S
hausdorff_distance() (object method), 20 shapely.affinity.affine_transform() (built-in function), 39
shapely.affinity.rotate() (built-in function), 40
I shapely.affinity.scale() (built-in function), 40
interpolate() (object method), 28 shapely.affinity.skew() (built-in function), 41
intersection() (object method), 35 shapely.affinity.translate() (built-in function), 41
intersects() (object method), 32 shapely.geometry.asShape() (built-in function), 49

55
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shapely.geometry.box() (built-in function), 24

shapely.geometry.CAP_STYLE (built-in variable), 36
shapely.geometry.JOIN_STYLE (built-in variable), 36
shapely.geometry.mapping() (built-in function), 50
shapely.geometry.polygon.orient() (built-in function), 24
shapely.geometry.shape() (built-in function), 49
shapely.ops.cascaded_union() (built-in function), 43
shapely.ops.linemerge() (built-in function), 43
shapely.ops.nearest_points() (built-in function), 45
shapely.ops.polygonize() (built-in function), 42
shapely.ops.polygonize_full() (built-in function), 42
shapely.ops.shared_paths() (built-in function), 45
shapely.ops.snap() (built-in function), 45
shapely.ops.split() (built-in function), 46
shapely.ops.transform() (built-in function), 41
shapely.ops.triangulate() (built-in function), 44
shapely.ops.unary_union() (built-in function), 44
shapely.wkb.dumps() (built-in function), 48
shapely.wkb.loads() (built-in function), 48
shapely.wkt.dumps() (built-in function), 48
shapely.wkt.loads() (built-in function), 48
simplify() (object method), 38
strtree.STRtree (built-in class), 47
symmetric_difference() (object method), 35

T
touches() (object method), 32

U
union() (object method), 36

W
within() (object method), 33

56 Index