[GRASS-user] v.distance anything to anything

[Moritz Lennert]

On 13/10/12 15:51, Markus Metz wrote:
> In GRASS7, v.distance can now calculate distances from
> point,line,boundary,centroid,area to
> point,line,boundary,centroid,area.

So how does it calculate the distance between two lines (lines or 
boundaries) ? Between closest vertices ? What about lines that cross 
several other lines, or lines that cross each other at several points ?

> In GRASS 6, v.distance can calculate distances only from
> point,centroid to point,line,boundary,centroid,area.

AFAIK, this was due to the conceptual issue mentioned above. I think 
that the answer has to be clearly explained in the manual because they 
are not as straightforward. And a first rapid test shows that these 
issues seem to be problematic in your implementation:

http://164.15.12.207/grass/v_distance_lines.png
http://164.15.12.207/grass/v_distance_areas.png

red: from features (quickly digitized test data available here: 
http://164.15.12.207/grass/v_distance_testdata.tgz)
black: to features (roadsmajor and urbanarea from nc_spm_08)
green: connecting lines between from and to feature

Moritz