[R-sig-Geo] Cleaning topology in R spatial objects - R or GIS task?

[Dylan Beaudette]

On Friday 07 December 2007 05:20:59 am Anne Ghisla wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> during kernel LSCV calculation for home range estimation (kernelUD, package
> adehabitat) I encountered a problem related to topology.
> One homerange is made of 5 polygons, but one of them has a null area: it is
> in fact a little line. The other polygons have some dangling arcs.
> R displays the homerange without warnings, then exports it as shapefile. As
> the shapefile is imported into a Postgis database, the wrong topology
> becomes a serious problem.
>
> I know that topology operations are typical GIS tasks.
> Could it be useful to add to R functions basic tools like clean/build
> topology of its spatial objects, even if it causes code duplication (in
> fact R spatial objects are quite always imported into a GIS)?
>
> All the best,
>
> Anne Ghisla
> Università dell'Insubria, Varese

GRASS is an excellent platform for this type of operation.

Cheers,

Dylan