This extension adds GIS (Geographic Information Systems) support to NetLogo. It provides the ability to load vector GIS data (points, lines, and polygons), and raster GIS data (grids) into your model.
The extension supports vector data in the form of ESRI shapefiles. The shapefile (.shp) format is the most common format for storing and exchanging vector GIS data. The extension supports raster data in the form of ESRI ASCII Grid files. The ASCII grid file (.asc or .grd) is not as common as the shapefile, but is supported as an interchange format by most GIS platforms.
In general, you first define a transformation between GIS data space and NetLogo space, then load datasets and perform various operations on them. The easiest way to define a transformation between GIS space and NetLogo space is to take the union of the “envelopes” or bounding rectangles of all of your datasets in GIS space and map that directly to the bounds of the NetLogo world. See GIS General Examples for an example of this technique.
You may also optionally define a projection for the GIS space, in which case datasets will be re-projected to match that projection as they are loaded, as long as each of your data files has an associated .prj file that describes the projection or geographic coordinate system of the data. If no associated .prj file is found, the extension will assume that the dataset already uses the current projection, regardless of what that projection is.
Once the coordinate system is defined, you can load datasets using gis:load-dataset. This primitive reports either a VectorDataset or a RasterDataset, depending on what type of file you pass it.
A VectorDataset consists of a collection of VectorFeatures, each one of which is a point, line, or polygon, along with a set of property values. A single VectorDataset may contain only one of the three possible types of features.
There are several things you can do with a VectorDataset: ask it for the names of the properties of its features, ask it for its “envelope” (bounding rectangle), ask for a list of all VectorFeatures in the dataset, search for a single VectorFeature or list of VectorFeatures whose value for a particular property is less than or greater than a particular value, or lies within a given range, or matches a given string using wildcard matching (“*”, which matches any number of occurrences of any characters). If the VectorFeatures are polygons, you can also apply the values of a particular property of the dataset’s features to a given patch variable.
There are also several things you can do with a VectorFeature from a VectorDataset: ask it for a list of vertex lists, ask it for a property value by name, ask it for its centroid (center of gravity), and ask for a subset of a given agentset whose agents intersect the given VectorFeature. For point data, each vertex list will be a one-element list. For line data, each vertex list will represent the vertices of a line that makes up that feature. For polygon data, each vertex list will represent one “ring” of the polygon, and the first and last vertex of the list will be the same. The vertex lists are made up of values of type Vertex, and the centroid will be a value of type Vertex as well.
There are a number of operations defined for RasterDatasets as well. Mostly these involve sampling the values in the dataset, or re-sampling a raster to a different resolution. You can also apply a raster to a given patch variable, and convolve a raster using an arbitrary convolution matrix.
Code Example: GIS General Examples has general examples of how to use the extension
Code Example: GIS Gradient Example is a more advanced example of raster dataset analysis.
Values of type RasterDataset, VectorDataset, VectorFeature, and
Vertex are not handled properly by export-world
and
import-world
. To save datasets, you must use the
gis:store-dataset
primitive.
There is currently no way to distinguish positive-area “shell” polygons from negative-area “hole” polygons, or to determine which holes are associated with which shells.
The primary developer of the GIS extension was Eric Russell.
The GIS extension makes use of several open-source software libraries. For copyright and license information on those, see the copyright section of the manual. The extension also contains elements borrowed from My World GIS.
This documentation and the example NetLogo models are in the public domain. The GIS extension itself is free and open source software. See the README.md file in the extension/gis directory for details.
We would love to hear your suggestions on how to improve the GIS extension, or just about what you’re using it for. Post questions and comments at the NetLogo Users Group, or write directly to Eric Russell and the NetLogo team at ccl-gis@ccl.northwestern.edu
gis:width-of
gis:height-of
gis:raster-value
gis:set-raster-value
gis:minimum-of
gis:maximum-of
gis:sampling-method-of
gis:set-sampling-method
gis:raster-sample
gis:raster-world-envelope
gis:create-raster
gis:resample
gis:convolve
gis:apply-raster
gis:load-dataset
gis:store-dataset
gis:type-of
gis:patch-dataset
gis:turtle-dataset
gis:link-dataset
gis:shape-type-of
gis:property-names
gis:feature-list-of
gis:vertex-lists-of
gis:centroid-of
gis:location-of
gis:property-value
gis:find-features
gis:find-one-feature
gis:find-less-than
gis:find-greater-than
gis:find-range
gis:property-minimum
gis:property-maximum
gis:apply-coverage
gis:coverage-minimum-threshold
gis:set-coverage-minimum-threshold
gis:coverage-maximum-threshold
gis:set-coverage-maximum-threshold
gis:intersects?
gis:contains?
gis:contained-by?
gis:have-relationship?
gis:relationship-of
gis:intersecting
gis:set-transformation
gis:set-transformation-ds
gis:set-world-envelope
gis:set-world-envelope-ds
gis:world-envelope
gis:envelope-of
gis:envelope-union-of
gis:load-coordinate-system
gis:set-coordinate-system
Defines a mapping between GIS coordinates and NetLogo coordinates. The gis-envelope and netlogo-envelope parameters must each be four-element lists consisting of:
[minimum-x maximum-x minimum-y maximum-y]
The scale of the transformation will be equal to the minimum of the scale necessary to make the mapping between the ranges of x values and the scale necessary to make the mapping between the ranges of y values. The GIS space will be centered in NetLogo space.
For example, the following two lists would map all of geographic (latitude and longitude) space in degrees to NetLogo world space, regardless of the current dimensions of the NetLogo world:
(list -180 180 -90 90)
(list min-pxcor max-pxcor min-pycor max-pycor)
However, if you’re setting the envelope of the NetLogo world, you should probably be using set-world-envelope.
Does the same thing as set-transformation above, except that it allows the scale for mapping the range of x values to be different than the scale for y values. The “-ds” on the end stands for “different scales”. Using different scales will cause distortion of the shape of GIS features, and so it is generally not recommended, but it may be useful for some models.
Here is an example of the difference between set-transformation and set-transformation-ds:
Using [set-transformation](#gisset-transformation), the scale along the x and y axis is the same, preserving the round shape of the Earth in this Orthographic projection. | Using [set-transformation-ds](#gisset-transformation-ds), the scale along the x axis is stretched so that the earth covers the entire NetLogo View, which in this case distorts the shape of the Earth. |
A shorthand for setting the transformation by mapping the envelope of the NetLogo world to the given envelope in GIS space, while keeping the scales along the x and y axis the same. It is equivalent to:
set-transformation gis-envelope (list min-pxcor max-pxcor min-pycor max-pycor)
This primitive is supplied because most of the time you’ll want to set the envelope of the entire NetLogo world, rather than just a part of it.
A shorthand for setting the transformation by mapping the envelope of the NetLogo world to the given envelope in GIS space, using different scales along the x and y axis if necessary. It is equivalent to:
set-transformation-ds gis-envelope (list min-pxcor max-pxcor min-pycor max-pycor)
See the pictures above for the difference between using equal scales for x and y coordinates and using different scales.
Reports the envelope (bounding rectangle) of the NetLogo world, transformed into GIS space. An envelope consists of a four-element list of the form:
[minimum-x maximum-x minimum-y maximum-y]
Reports the envelope (bounding rectangle) of thing in GIS coordinates. The thing may be an Agent, an AgentSet, a RasterDataset, a VectorDataset, or a VectorFeature. An envelope consists of a four-element list of the form:
[minimum-x maximum-x minimum-y maximum-y]
Reports an envelope (bounding rectangle) that entirely contains the given envelopes. An envelope consists of a four-element list of the form
[minimum-x maximum-x minimum-y maximum-y]
No assumption is made about the coordinate system of the arguments, though if they are not in the same coordinate system, results will be unpredictable.
Loads a new global projection used for projecting or re- projecting GIS data as it is loaded from a file. The file must contain a valid Well-Known Text (WKT) projection description.
WKT projection files are frequently distributed alongside GIS data files, and usually have a “.prj” filename extension.
Relative paths are resolved relative to the location of the current model, or the user’s home directory if the current model hasn’t been saved yet.
The GIS extension does not support all WKT coordinate systems and
projections. Only geographic ("GEOGCS"
) and
projected ("PROJCS"
) coordinate systems are
supported. For projected coordinate systems, only the following
projections are supported:
See remotesensing.org for a complete list of WKT projections and their parameters.
Sets the global projection used for projecting or re- projecting GIS data as it is loaded. The system must be either a string in Well-Known Text (WKT) format, or a NetLogo list that consists of WKT converted to a list by moving each keyword inside its associated brackets and putting quotes around it. The latter is preferred because it makes the code much more readable.
The same limitations on WKT support apply as described above in the documentation for load-coordinate-system
Loads the given data file, re-projecting the data as necessary if a global projection is defined and if the data file itself has an associated .prj file, then reports the resulting dataset.
If no “.prj” file is present, then load-dataset
assumes that the projection of the data being loaded is the same as
the current global coordinate system.
Relative paths are resolved relative to the location of the current model, or the user’s home directory if the current model hasn’t been saved yet.
Currently, two types of data file are supported:
load-dataset
reports a VectorDataset.load-dataset
reports a RasterDataset.Saves the given dataset to the given file. If the name of the file does not have the proper file extension, the extension will be automatically appended to the name. Relative paths are resolved relative to the location of the current model, or the user’s home directory if the current model hasn’t been saved yet.
Currently, this primitive only works for RasterDatasets, and it can only save those datasets as ESRI ASCII grid files.
Reports the type of the given GIS dataset: either “VECTOR” or “RASTER”
Reports a new raster whose cells correspond directly to NetLogo
patches, and whose cell values consist of the values of the given
patch variable. This primitive is basically the inverse of apply-raster;
apply-raster
copies values from a raster dataset to a patch variable, while this
primitive copies values from a patch variable to a raster dataset.
Reports a new, point VectorDataset built from the turtles in the given agentset. The points are located at locations of the turtles, translated from NetLogo space into GIS space using the current coordinate transformation. And the dataset’s properties consist of all of the turtle variables common to every turtle in the agentset.
Reports a new, line VectorDataset built from the links in the given agentset. The endpoints of each line are at the location of the turtles connected by each link, translated from NetLogo space into GIS space using the current coordinate transformation. And the dataset’s properties consist of all of the link variables common to every link in the agentset.
Reports the shape type of the given dataset. The possible output values are “POINT”, “LINE”, and “POLYGON”.
Reports a list of strings where each string is the name of a property possessed by each VectorFeature in the given VectorDataset, suitable for use in gis:property-value.
Reports a list of all VectorFeatures in the given dataset.
Reports a list of lists of Vertex values. For point datasets, each vertex list will contain exactly one vertex: the location of a point. For line datasets, each vertex list will contain at least two points, and will represent a “polyline”, connecting each adjacent pair of vertices in the list. For polygon datasets, each vertex list will contain at least three points, representing a polygon connecting each vertex, and the first and last vertices in the list will be the same.
Reports a single Vertex representing the centroid (center of gravity) of the given feature. For point datasets, the centroid is defined as the average location of all points in the feature. For line datasets, the centroid is defined as the average of the locations of the midpoints of all line segments in the feature, weighted by segment length. For polygon datasets, the centroid is defined as the weighted sum of the centroids of a decomposition of the area into (possibly overlapping) triangles. See this FAQ for more details on the polygon centroid algorithm.
Reports a two-element list containing the x and y values (in that order) of the given vertex translated into NetLogo world space using the current transformation, or an empty list if the given vertex lies outside the NetLogo world.
Reports the value of the property with the given name for the given VectorDataset. The reported value may be a number, a string, or a boolean value, depending on the type of the field in the underlying data file.
For shapefiles, values from dBase CHARACTER
and
DATE
fields are returned as strings, values from
NUMBER
and FLOAT
fields are returned as numbers,
and values from LOGICAL
fields are returned as boolean
values. MEMO
fields are not supported. DATE
values are converted to strings using ISO 8601 format
(YYYY-MM-DD
).
Reports a list of all VectorFeatures in the given dataset whose value for the property property-name matches specified-value (a string). Value comparison is not case sensitive, and the wildcard character “*” will match any number of occurrences (including zero) of any character.
Reports the first VectorFeature in the dataset whose value for the
property property-name matches the given string. Value
comparison is not case sensitive, and the wildcard character
“*” will match any number of occurrences (including zero)
of any character. Features are searched in the order that they
appear in the data file that was the source of the dataset, and
searching stops as soon as a match is found. Reports
nobody
if no matching VectorFeature is found.
Reports a list of all VectorFeatures in the given dataset whose value for the property property-name is less than the given value. String values are compared using case-sensitive lexicographic order as defined in the Java Documentation. Using a string value for a numeric property or a numeric value for a string property will cause an error.
Reports a list of all VectorFeatures in the given dataset whose value for the property property-name is greater than the given value. String values are compared using case-sensitive lexicographic order as defined in the Java Documentation. Using a string value for a numeric property or a numeric value for a string property will cause an error.
Reports a list of all VectorFeatures in the given dataset whose value for the property property-name is strictly greater than minimum-value and strictly less than maximum-value. String values are compared using case-sensitive lexicographic order as defined in the Java Documentation. Using a string value for a numeric property or a numeric value for a string property will cause an error.
Reports the smallest value for the given property over all of the VectorFeatures in the given dataset. String values are compared using case-sensitive lexicographic order as defined in the Java Documentation.
Reports the largest value for the given property over all of the VectorFeatures in the given dataset. String values are compared using case-sensitive lexicographic order as defined in the Java Documentation.
Copies values from the given property of the VectorDataset’s
features to the given patch variable. The dataset must be a
polygon
dataset; points and lines are not supported.
For each patch, it finds all VectorFeatures that intersect that patch. Then, if the property is a string property, it computes the majority value by computing the total area of the patch covered by VectorFeatures having each possible value of the property, then returning the value which represents the largest proportion of the patch area. If the property is a numeric property, it computes a weighted average of property values from all VectorFeatures which intersect the patch, weighted by the proportion of the patch area they cover.
There are two exceptions to this default behavior:
If a percentage of a patches’ area greater than the coverage-maximum-threshold is covered by a single VectorFeature, then the property value from that VectorFeature is copied directly. If more than one VectorFeature covers a percentage of area greater than the threshold, only the first will be used.
If the total percentage of a patches’ area covered by VectorFeatures is less than the coverage-minimum-threshold, the target patch variable is set to Not A Number.
By default, the minimum threshold is 10% and the maximum threshold is 33%. These values may be modified using the four primitives that follow.
Reports the current coverage minimum threshold used by gis:apply-coverage.
Sets the current coverage minimum threshold to be used by gis:apply-coverage.
Reports the current coverage maximum threshold used by gis:apply-coverage.
Sets the current coverage maximum threshold to be used by gis:apply-coverage.
Reports true if the given objects’ spatial representations share at least one point in common, and false otherwise. The objects x and y may be any one of:
Reports true if every point of y’s spatial representation is also a part of x’s spatial representation. Note that this means that polygons do contain their boundaries. The objects x and y may be any one of
Reports true if every point of x’s spatial representation is also a part of y’s spatial representation. The objects x and y may be any one of:
Reports true if the spatial representations of the two objects have the given spatial relationship, and false otherwise. The spatial relationship is specified using a Dimensionally Extended Nine- Intersection Model (DE-9IM) matrix. The matrix consists of 9 elements, each of which specifies the required relationship between the two objects’ interior space, boundary space, or exterior space. The elements must have one of six possible values:
For example, this matrix:
x | ||||
Interior | Boundary | Exterior | ||
y | Interior | T | * | * |
Boundary | * | * | * | |
Exterior | F | F | * |
would return true if and only if some part of object x’s
interior lies inside object y’s interior, and no part of
object x’s interior or boundary intersects object
y’s exterior. This is essentially a more restrictive
form of the contains?
primitive; one in which polygons are
not considered to contain their boundaries.
The matrix is given to the have-relationship?
primitive as
a string, whose elements are given in the following order:
1 | 2 | 3 |
4 | 5 | 6 |
7 | 8 | 9 |
So to use the example matrix above, you would write:
gis:have-relationship? x y "T*****FF*"
A much more detailed and formal description of the DE-9IM matrix and the associated point-set theory can be found in the OpenGIS Simple Features Specification for SQL.
The objects x and y may be any one of:
Reports the Dimensionally Extended Nine-Intersection Model (DE-9IM) matrix that describes the spatial relationship of the two objects. The matrix consists of 9 elements, each of which describes the relationship between the two objects’ interior space, boundary space, or exterior space. Each element will describe the dimension of the intersection of two spaces, meaning that it may have one of four possible values:
For example, the two polygons x and y shown here:
have the following DE-9IM matrix:
x | ||||
Interior | Boundary | Exterior | ||
y | Interior | 2 | 1 | 2 |
Boundary | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
Exterior | 2 | 1 | 2 |
Which would be reported by the relationship-of
primitive
as the string “212101212”.
A much more detailed and formal description of the DE-9IM matrix and the associated point-set theory can be found in the OpenGIS Simple Features Specification for SQL.
The objects x and y may be any one of:
Reports a new agent set containing only those members of the given agent set which intersect given GIS data, which may be any one of: a VectorDataset, a VectorFeature, an Agent, an Agent Set, or a list containing any of the above.
Reports the number of columns in the dataset. Note that this is the number of cells from left to right, not the width of the dataset in GIS space.
Reports the number of rows in the dataset. Note that this is the number of cells from top to bottom, not the height of the dataset in GIS space.
Reports the value of the given raster dataset in the given cell.
Cell coordinates are numbered from left to right, and from top to
bottom, beginning with zero. So the upper left cell is (0, 0), and
the bottom right cell is (gis:width-of dataset
- 1,
gis:height-of dataset
- 1).
Sets the value of the given raster dataset at the given cell to a
new value. Cell coordinates are numbered from left to right, and
from top to bottom, beginning with zero. So the upper left cell is
(0, 0), and the bottom right cell is (gis:width-of dataset
- 1, gis:height-of dataset
- 1).
Reports the sampling method used to compute the value of the given raster dataset at a single point, or over an area smaller than a single raster cell. Sampling is performed by the GIS extension primitives raster-sample, resample, convolve, and apply-raster. The sampling method will be one of the following:
"NEAREST_NEIGHBOR"
: the value of the cell
nearest the sampling location is used."BILINEAR"
: the value of the four nearest
cells are sampled by linear weighting, according to their
proximity to the sampling site."BICUBIC"
: the value of the sixteen nearest
cells are sampled, and their values are combined by weight
according to a piecewise cubic polynomial recommended by Rifman
(see Digital Image Warping, George Wolberg, 1990, pp
129-131, IEEE Computer Society Press)."BICUBIC_2"
: the value is sampled using the
same procedure and the same polynomial as with BICUBIC
above, but using a different coefficient. This method may produce
somewhat sharper results than BICUBIC
, but that result
is data dependent.For more information on these sampling methods and on raster sampling in general, see this wikipedia article.
Sets the sampling method used by the given raster dataset at a single point, or over an area smaller than a single raster cell. Sampling is performed by the GIS extension primitives raster-sample, resample, convolve, and apply-raster. The sampling method must be one of the following:
"NEAREST_NEIGHBOR"
"BILINEAR"
"BICUBIC"
"BICUBIC_2"
See sampling-method-of above for a more specific description of each sampling method.
Reports the value of the given raster over the given location. The location may be any of the following:
[xcor ycor]
) of the sort reported by
location-of Vertex. The raster
dataset is sampled at the point of that location.If the requested location is outside the area covered by the raster dataset, this primitive reports the special value representing “not a number”, which is printed by NetLogo as “NaN”. Using the special “not a number” value as an argument to primitives that expect a number may cause an error, but you can test the value reported by this primitive to filter out “not a number” values. A value that is not a number will be neither less than nor greater than a number value, so you can detect “not a number” values using the following:
let value gis:raster-sample dataset turtle 0
; set color to blue if value is a number, red if value is "not a number"
ifelse (value <= 0) or (value >= 0)
[ set color blue ]
[ set color red ]
If the requested location is a point, the sample is always computed using the method set by set-sampling-method. If the requested location is an area (i.e., an envelope or patch), the sample is computed by taking the average of all raster cells covered by the requested area.
Reports the GIS envelope needed to match the boundaries of NetLogo patches with the boundaries of cells in the given raster dataset. This envelope could then be used as an argument to set-transformation-ds.
There may be more cells in the dataset than there are patches in
the NetLogo world. In that case, you will need to select a subset
of cells in the dataset by specifying which cell in the dataset you
want to match with the upper-left corner of the NetLogo world.
Cells are numbered from left to right, and from top to bottom,
beginning with zero. So the upper left cell is (0, 0), and the
bottom right cell is (gis:width-of dataset
- 1, gis:height-of dataset
- 1).
Creates and reports a new, empty raster dataset with the given number of columns and rows, covering the given envelope.
Reports a new dataset that consists of the given RasterDataset
resampled to cover the given envelope and to contain the given
number of columns and rows. If the new raster’s cells are
smaller than the existing raster’s cells, they will be
resampled using the method set by set-sampling-method. If the new
cells are larger than the original cells, they will be sampled
using the "NEAREST_NEIGHBOR"
method.
Reports a new raster whose data consists of the given raster convolved with the given kernel.
A convolution is a mathematical operation that computes each output cell by multiplying elements of a kernel with the cell values surrounding a particular source cell. A kernel is a matrix of values, with one particular value defined as the “key element”, the value that is centered over the source cell corresponding to the destination cell whose value is being computed.
The values of the kernel matrix are given as a list, which enumerates the elements of the matrix from left to right, top to bottom. So the elements of a 3-by-3 matrix would be listed in the following order:
1 | 2 | 3 |
4 | 5 | 6 |
7 | 8 | 9 |
The key element is specified by column and row within the matrix. Columns are numbered from left to right, beginning with zero. Rows are numbered from top to bottom, also beginning with zero. So, for example, the kernel for the horizontal Sobel operator, which looks like this:
1 | 0 | -1 |
2 | 0 (key) | -2 |
1 | 0 | -1 |
would be specified as follows:
let horizontal-gradient gis:convolve dataset 3 3 [1 0 -1 2 0 -2 1 0 -1] 1 1
Copies values from the given raster dataset to the given patch variable, resampling the raster as necessary so that its cell boundaries match up with NetLogo patch boundaries. This resampling is done as if using resample rather than raster-sample, for the sake of efficiency. However, patches not covered by the raster are assigned values of “not a number” in the same way that raster-sample reports values for locations outside the raster.
Reports the color used by the GIS extension to draw vector features into the NetLogo drawing layer. Color can be represented either as a NetLogo color (a single number between zero and 140) or an RGB color (a list of 3 numbers). See details in the Colors section of the Programming Guide.
Sets the color used by the GIS extension to draw vector features into the NetLogo drawing layer. Color can be represented either as a NetLogo color (a single number between zero and 140) or an RGB color (a list of 3 numbers). See details in the Colors section of the Programming Guide.
Draws the given vector data to the NetLogo drawing layer, using the current GIS drawing color, with the given line thickness. The data may consist either of an entire VectorDataset, or a single VectorFeature. This primitive draws only the boundary of polygon data, and for point data, it fills a circle with a radius equal to the line thickness.
Fills the given vector data in the NetLogo drawing layer using the current GIS drawing color, using the given line thickness around the edges. The data may consist either of an entire VectorDataset, or a single VectorFeature. For point data, it fills a circle with a radius equal to the line thickness.
Paints the given raster data to the NetLogo drawing layer. The highest value in the dataset is painted white, the lowest is painted in black, and the other values are painted in shades of gray scaled linearly between white and black.
The transparency input determines how transparent the new image in the drawing will be. Valid inputs range from 0 (completely opaque) to 255 (completely transparent).
Imports an image into the NetLogo drawing layer using the Web Mapping Service protocol, as defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium.
The spatial reference and layers inputs should be given as strings. The spatial reference input corresponds to the SRS parameter to the GetMap request as defined in section 7.2.3.5 of version 1.1.1 of the WMS standard. The layers input corresponds to the LAYERS parameter to the as defined in 7.2.3.3 of version 1.1.1 of the WMS standard.
You can find the list of valid spatial reference codes and layer names by examining the response to a GetCapabilities request to the WMS server. Consult the relevant standard for instructions on how to issue a GetCapabilities request to the server and how to interpret the results.
The transparency input determines how transparent the new image in the drawing will be. Valid inputs range from 0 (completely opaque) to 255 (completely transparent).