Clipping and Merging

Spatial clipping

When working with more than one GeoDataFrames at a time, two common operations are clipping and merging.

Spatial clipping is a fundamental process in computer graphics, image processing, and especially in GIS that involve cutting or limiting a specific region or area within a larger spatial dataset. In our context, the primary purpose of this operation is to extract relevant information from a larger dataset or image, focusing on a specific region of interest, while discarding the extraneous data or creating new geometric features. It also helps reduce the complexity of large datasets.

Spatial clipping is particularly useful in GIS applications for tasks such as environmental analysis, urban planning, and transportation management. The clipping can be performed between two vectorial datasets, vector and raster, or between a raster and a mask. In the following figure, we have the schematic view of a clipping operation performed between two vectorial datasets.