Expanding a polygon

[Lowell.Filak]

Chip Taylor writes: 

> I need a tool that can take a shape file with a polygon, such as a state
> boundary, and expand it x amount in all directions.  For example, take a
> shapefile of the boundary of the State of Tennessee and expand the polygon
> .5 degrees in all directions.  Anyone know of such a tool?

Chip, 

I'm not sure about buffering by degrees but that could just depend on the 
projection. Mapscript does have GEOS buffering built-in now so you could 
open the shapefile and loop through each polygon performing a buffer on each 
then write each back out into a new shapefile. Because shapefiles are more 
like areas than polygons there shouldn't be any problem with the resulting 
shapes overlapping in the new shapefile. 

Lowell