Dealing with geographical data

Geometry objects

Creating a Geometry

GEOSGeometry objects may be created in a few ways. The first is to simply instantiate the object on some spatial input – the following are examples of creating the same geometry from WKT, HEX, WKB, and GeoJSON:

>>> from django.contrib.gis.geos import GEOSGeometry
>>> pnt = GEOSGeometry('POINT(5 23)') # WKT
>>> pnt = GEOSGeometry('010100000000000000000014400000000000003740') # HEX
>>> pnt = GEOSGeometry(buffer('\x01\x01\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x14@\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x007@'))
>>> pnt = GEOSGeometry('{ "type": "Point", "coordinates": [ 5.000000, 23.000000 ] }') # GeoJSON

Another option is to use the constructor for the specific geometry type that you wish to create. For example, a Point object may be created by passing in the X and Y coordinates into its constructor:

>>> from django.contrib.gis.geos import Point
>>> pnt = Point(5, 23)

All these constructors take the keyword argument srid. For example:

>>> from django.contrib.gis.geos import GEOSGeometry, LineString, Point
>>> print(GEOSGeometry('POINT (0 0)', srid=4326))
SRID=4326;POINT (0.0000000000000000 0.0000000000000000)
>>> print(LineString((0, 0), (1, 1), srid=4326))
SRID=4326;LINESTRING (0.0000000000000000 0.0000000000000000, 1.0000000000000000 1.0000000000000000)
>>> print(Point(0, 0, srid=32140))
SRID=32140;POINT (0.0000000000000000 0.0000000000000000)

Finally, there is the django.contrib.gis.geos.fromfile() factory method which returns a GEOSGeometry object from a file:

>>> from django.contrib.gis.geos import fromfile
>>> pnt = fromfile('/path/to/pnt.wkt')
>>> pnt = fromfile(open('/path/to/pnt.wkt'))

Geometries are Pythonic

GEOSGeometry objects are ‘Pythonic’, in other words components may be accessed, modified, and iterated over using standard Python conventions. For example, you can iterate over the coordinates in a Point:

>>> pnt = Point(5, 23)
>>> [coord for coord in pnt]
[5.0, 23.0]

With any geometry object, the coords property may be used to get the geometry coordinates as a Python tuple:

>>> pnt.coords
(5.0, 23.0)

You can get/set geometry components using standard Python indexing techniques. However, what is returned depends on the geometry type of the object. For example, indexing on a LineString returns a coordinate tuple:

>>> from django.contrib.gis.geos import LineString
>>> line = LineString((0, 0), (0, 50), (50, 50), (50, 0), (0, 0))
>>> line[0]
(0.0, 0.0)
>>> line[-2]
(50.0, 0.0)

Whereas indexing on a Polygon will return the ring (a LinearRing object) corresponding to the index:

>>> from django.contrib.gis.geos import Polygon
>>> poly = Polygon( ((0.0, 0.0), (0.0, 50.0), (50.0, 50.0), (50.0, 0.0), (0.0, 0.0)) )
>>> poly[0]
<LinearRing object at 0x1044395b0>
>>> poly[0][-2] # second-to-last coordinate of external ring
(50.0, 0.0)

In addition, coordinates/components of the geometry may added or modified, just like a Python list:

>>> line[0] = (1.0, 1.0)
>>> line.pop()
(0.0, 0.0)
>>> line.append((1.0, 1.0))
>>> line.coords
((1.0, 1.0), (0.0, 50.0), (50.0, 50.0), (50.0, 0.0), (1.0, 1.0))

Geometries support set-like operators:

>>> from django.contrib.gis.geos import LineString
>>> ls1 = LineString((0, 0), (2, 2))
>>> ls2 = LineString((1, 1), (3, 3))
>>> print(ls1 | ls2)  # equivalent to `ls1.union(ls2)`
MULTILINESTRING ((0 0, 1 1), (1 1, 2 2), (2 2, 3 3))
>>> print(ls1 & ls2)  # equivalent to `ls1.intersection(ls2)`
LINESTRING (1 1, 2 2)
>>> print(ls1 - ls2)  # equivalent to `ls1.difference(ls2)`
LINESTRING(0 0, 1 1)
>>> print(ls1 ^ ls2)  # equivalent to `ls1.sym_difference(ls2)`
MULTILINESTRING ((0 0, 1 1), (2 2, 3 3))

Equality operator doesn’t check spatial equality

The GEOSGeometry equality operator uses equals_exact(), not equals(), i.e. it requires the compared geometries to have the same coordinates in the same positions:

>>> from django.contrib.gis.geos import LineString
>>> ls1 = LineString((0, 0), (1, 1))
>>> ls2 = LineString((1, 1), (0, 0))
>>> ls1.equals(ls2)
True
>>> ls1 == ls2
False

More information on geometric objects can be found in the GEOS API documentation.

Measurement objects

The measure module contains objects that allow for convenient representation of distance and area units of measure. Specifically, it implements two objects, Distance and Area – both of which may be accessed via the D and A convenience aliases, respectively.

Example

Distance objects may be instantiated using a keyword argument indicating the context of the units. In the example below, two different distance objects are instantiated in units of kilometers (km) and miles (mi):

>>> from django.contrib.gis.measure import Distance, D
>>> d1 = Distance(km=5)
>>> print(d1)
5.0 km
>>> d2 = D(mi=5) # `D` is an alias for `Distance`
>>> print(d2)
5.0 mi

Conversions are easy, just access the preferred unit attribute to get a converted distance quantity:

>>> print(d1.mi) # Converting 5 kilometers to miles
3.10685596119
>>> print(d2.km) # Converting 5 miles to kilometers
8.04672

Moreover, arithmetic operations may be performed between the distance objects:

>>> print(d1 + d2) # Adding 5 miles to 5 kilometers
13.04672 km
>>> print(d2 - d1) # Subtracting 5 kilometers from 5 miles
1.89314403881 mi

Two Distance objects multiplied together will yield an Area object, which uses squared units of measure:

>>> a = d1 * d2 # Returns an Area object.
>>> print(a)
40.2336 sq_km

To determine what the attribute abbreviation of a unit is, the unit_attname class method may be used:

>>> print(Distance.unit_attname('US Survey Foot'))
survey_ft
>>> print(Distance.unit_attname('centimeter'))
cm

More information on measure objects and supported units can be found in the measure objects reference.

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