[gdal-dev] trunk/gdal/apps/ogrdissolve.cpp

[Howard Butler]

On Sep 18, 2009, at 1:43 AM, Hermann Peifer wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I see there is a potentially helpful utility for dissolving  
> geometries at http://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/browser/trunk/gdal/apps/ogrdissolve.cpp
>
> But obviously, there is no related executable in GDAL 1.6.2 or  
> 1.7.0dev. Are there any plans to continue work on ogrdissolve?
>
> Hermann

Hermann,

I didn't have any plans to keep support for that going as a utility,  
which is why it hasn't been more widely promoted or why it doesn't  
build by default.  Its methods are suspect (depend upon GEOS'  
buffer(0) segmentation routines), and for geometry that is highly  
coincident that you might frequently want to dissolve (think parcel  
boundaries), GEOS often degenerates without some serious handholding.   
You can also do the same thing as ogrdissolve by loading your data  
into postgis and issuing a little SQL and have way more flexibility.   
All of these things made me drop the effort.

It exists now as some code examples, and when a developer notices it  
isn't really being used, it might (and can) be removed from the  
repository.

Howard