g.gui.vdigit(1)

📦
version 8.4.2 · 10 versions
, in fedora 44

💖 g.gui.vdigit 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the GRASS GIS User's Manual page for g.gui.vdigit — this is the cute little interactive editing era of vector maps and honestly? iconic. let's get into it 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

g.gui.vdigit — interactive editing and digitization of vector maps. that's it, that's the whole vibe 🦋

🌸 KEYWORDS 🌸

general, GUI, vector, editing, digitizer

💅 SYNOPSIS 💅

g.gui.vdigit
g.gui.vdigit --help
g.gui.vdigit [-c] map=name  [--help]  [--verbose]  [--quiet]  [--ui]

🎀 Flags

  • -c — create a new vector map if it doesn't exist. no map? no problem, we make one 💖
  • --help — print the usage summary, aka the "what does this even do" button
  • --verbose — verbose module output. it's giving yapper mode, and we love that for it
  • --quiet — quiet module output. shhh 🤫
  • --ui — force launching the GUI dialog

🧚 Parameters

  • map=name [required] — name of the vector map to edit. or, plot twist, a data source for direct OGR access 🌈

🌟 DESCRIPTION 🌟

so the vector digitizer is a wxGUI component, and its whole main character job is interactive editing and digitizing of vector maps. (if you want the non-interactive route, go look at v.edit for GRASS's non-interactive vector editing capabilities. different era, different energy.)

⚠️ important bestie: only vector maps that are stored or generated in the current mapset can be opened for editing. that's a hard limit, no cap.

the digitizer lets you edit 2D vector features — points, lines, centroids, boundaries, and areas 💫

you can select vector features by mouse (bounding box, or literally just a mouse click — check the select threshold in Settings→General→Select threshold), or by query (like, by line length — see Settings→Query Tool). slay.

🚀 STARTING THE DIGITIZER

you can launch the vector digitizer from the Map Display toolbar by picking "Digitize" from the Tools combobox. the vector map is selectable for editing from the Digitizer toolbar (that's the "Select vector map" combobox — heads up, it only lists vector maps from the current layer tree in Layer Manager, so don't come crying if your fave isn't there 🙈).

alternatively you can activate the vector digitizer from the contextual menu in the Layer Manager, by selecting "Start editing" on a selected vector map in the layer tree, or straight up from the Layer Manager toolbar.

and yes, it can also be launched from the command line as a stand-alone application: g.gui.vdigit. versatile queen 👑

🆕 CREATING A NEW VECTOR MAP

making a new vector map is lowkey easy: from the digitizer toolbar, select "New vector map" in the "Select vector map" combobox. boom — a new vector map is created, added to the current layer tree in Layer Manager, and opened for editing ✨

the "Select vector map" combobox in the digitizer toolbar also lets you effortlessly switch between vector maps to be edited. switching like it's nothing 💅

✏️ EDITING AN EXISTING VECTOR MAP

an existing vector map gets selected in the digitizer toolbar in the "Select vector map" combobox. that map is then opened for editing and added to the current layer tree in the Layer Manager. and again — this "Select vector map" combobox in the digitizer toolbar lets you easily switch between vector maps to be edited. yes we said it twice, it's that serious 🫶

🗺️ USING A RASTER BACKGROUND MAP

to digitize from a raster map, just load the map into the Map Display using the Layer Manager. then start digitizing — details below bestie, keep scrolling ⬇️

🦋 USING A VECTOR BACKGROUND MAP

the vector digitizer lets you select a "background" vector map. loading it within the digitizer is a whole different experience from just loading it via Layer Manager, because direct interaction with single vector features then becomes possible. yes, that's the tea ☕

vector features may be copied from the background map using the "Copy features from (background) vector map" tool from the "Additional tools" of the digitizer toolbar.

newly digitized vector features are snapped, within the given threshold, to the features from the background map. so clean, so precise 🌸

🛠️ DIGITIZER TOOLBAR

  • Digitize new point — add a new point to the vector map and optionally define its attributes (Ctrl+P).
  • Digitize new line — add a new line to the vector map and optionally define its attributes (Ctrl+L).
  • Digitize new boundary — add a new boundary to the vector map and optionally define its attributes (Ctrl+B).
  • Digitize new centroid — add a new centroid to the vector map and optionally define its attributes (Ctrl+C).
  • Digitize new area — add a new area (closed boundary and one centroid inside) to the vector map and optionally define its attributes (Ctrl+A).
  • Move vertex — move a selected vertex of a linear feature. thus the shape of the linear feature is changed (Ctrl+G).
  • Add vertex — add a new vertex to the selected linear feature (shape not changed) (Ctrl+V).
  • Remove vertex — remove the selected vertex from a linear feature (Ctrl+X). thus the shape of the selected feature can be changed.
  • Edit line/boundary — edit the selected linear feature, add new segments or remove existing segments of the linear feature (Ctrl+E).
  • Move feature(s) — move selected vector features (Ctrl+M.). selection can be done by mouse or by query.
  • Delete feature(s) — delete selected vector features (point, line, centroid, or boundary) (Ctrl+D). selection can be done by mouse or by query.
  • Delete areas(s) — delete selected vector areas (Ctrl+F). selection can be done by mouse or by query.
  • Display/update categories — display categories of the selected vector feature (Ctrl+J). category settings can be modified, new layer/category pairs added, or already defined pairs removed.
  • Display/update attributes — display attributes of the selected vector feature (based on its category settings) (Ctrl+K). attributes can also be modified. same functionality is accessible from the Main toolbar "Query vector map (editable mode)".
  • Additional tools
    • Break selected lines/boundaries at intersection — split a given vector line or boundary into two lines on a given position (based on v.clean, tool=break).
    • Connect two selected lines/boundaries — connect selected lines or boundaries; the first given line is connected to the second one. the second line is broken if necessary on each intersection. the lines are connected only if the distance between them is not greater than the snapping threshold value.
    • Copy categories — copy category settings of a selected vector feature to other vector features. layer/category pairs of the source vector features are appended to the target feature category settings. existing layer/category pairs are not removed from the category settings of the target features.
    • Copy features from (background) vector map — make an identical copy of selected vector features. if a background vector map has been selected from the Layer Manager, copy features from the background vector map, not from the currently modified vector map.
    • Copy attributes — duplicate attributes settings of a selected vector feature to other vector features. new category(ies) is appended to the target feature category settings, and attributes are duplicated based on the category settings of the source vector features. existing layer/category pairs are not removed from the category settings of the target features.
    • Feature type conversion — change the feature type of selected geometry features. points are converted to centroids, centroids to points, lines to boundaries, and boundaries to lines.
    • Flip selected lines/boundaries — flip the direction of selected linear features (lines or boundaries).
    • Merge selected lines/boundaries — merge (at least two) selected vector lines or boundaries. the geometry of the merged vector lines can be changed. if the second line from two selected lines is in the opposite direction to the first, it will be flipped. see also the module v.build.polylines.
    • Snap selected lines/boundaries (only to nodes) — snap vector features within a given threshold. see also the module v.clean. note that this tool supports only snapping to nodes. snapping to vector features from a background vector map is not currently supported.
    • Split line/boundary — split the selected line or boundary on a given position.
    • Query tool — select vector features by defining a threshold for the min/max length value (linear features or dangles).
    • Z-bulk labeling of 3D lines — assign z coordinate values to 3D vector lines in a bounding box. this is useful for labeling contour lines.
  • Undo — undo previous operations (Ctrl+Z).
  • Redo — redo previous operations (Ctrl+Y).
  • Settings — digitizer settings (Ctrl+T).
  • Show help — show the help page for the Digitizer (Ctrl+H).
  • Quit digitizing tool — changes in the vector map can optionally be discarded when the digitizing session is quit (Ctrl+Q).

📝 NOTES 📝

mouse button functions, bestie:

  • Left — select or deselect features
  • Control+Left — cancel action or undo vertex when digitizing lines
  • Right — confirm action

dead (deleted) features are only marked as 'dead' in the geometry file, but they remain there and occupy space 💀 any vector module used afterwards on this vector map which really reads and writes vector geometry (so, not g.copy) will write only features which are 'alive'.

added or modified vector features are snapped to existing vector features (Settings→General→Snapping). to disable snapping, set the snapping threshold to '0'.

if the digitizer crashes for some reason, the changes are automatically saved. broken topology can be repaired by running v.build. we love a safety net 🫶

GRASS GIS uses a topological vector format, which means a common boundary of two polygons is only stored once. when digitizing polygons it's therefore important to be able to draw each boundary only once. when drawing a polygon adjacent to an existing polygon, you have to first split the existing boundary at the points where the new boundary will be attached. snapping should be set to ensure that the new boundaries are automatically attached to the chosen points. periodt. 👑

📚 REFERENCES 📚

  • GRASS Vedit Library
  • Vector Database Management (Wiki page)

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

wxGUI, wxGUI components

v.edit, v.category, v.build, g.gui.rdigit, wxGUI.rdigit

also check out the WxGUI Vector Digitizer Wiki page, including video tutorials 🎬

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Martin Landa, FBK-irst (2007-2008), Trento, Italy, and Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic 💖

💻 SOURCE CODE 💻

available at: wxGUI Vector Digitizer source code (history)

accessed: Saturday Jan 17 05:42:35 2026

Main index | GUI index | Topics index | Keywords index | Graphical index | Full index

© 2003-2025 GRASS Development Team, GRASS GIS 8.4.2 Reference Manual

and that's the whole page babes 🎀 this was g.gui.vdigit(1) from the GRASS GIS User's Manual, running on GRASS 8.4.2 — go digitize something gorgeous, ily, bye 💖✨🦋

📦 where this page comes from