wxGUI.vdigit(1grass)

📦
version 8.5.0 · 13 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💖 wxGUI Vector Digitizer 💖

okay bestie gather round, this is wxGUI.vdigit(1grass) and it's literally the glow-up era of vector editing ✨

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

The vector digitizer is a wxGUI component made for interactive editing and digitizing of vector maps — and if you want the non-interactive version of vector editing, GRASS has that too, go peep v.edit.

real talk: only vector maps stored or generated in the current mapset can be opened for editing. no sneaking in maps from other mapsets, bestie, it's not gonna happen 💅

The digitizer lets you edit 2D vector features — and that means points, lines, centroids, boundaries, and areas. the whole squad 🫶

Vector features can be selected by mouse (bounding box, or just a plain old mouse click — see select threshold in Settings→General→Select threshold), or by query (like, say, by line length, see Settings→Query Tool).

🚀 STARTING THE DIGITIZER

You can launch the vector digitizer from the Map Display toolbar by picking "Digitize" from the Tools combobox. Your vector map becomes selectable for editing from the Digitizer toolbar — that's the "Select vector map" combobox, and heads up, only vector maps from the current layer tree in Layer Manager are listed there. no cap.

Other ways in, because she's flexible like that:

  • from the contextual menu in the Layer Manager, by selecting "Start editing" on the selected vector map in the layer tree
  • or straight from the Layer Manager toolbar
  • or from the command line, as a stand-alone application: g.gui.vdigit

✨ CREATING A NEW VECTOR MAP

A new vector map? So easy. From the digitizer toolbar, just select "New vector map" in the "Select vector map" combobox. The map gets created, added to the current layer tree in Layer Manager, and opened for editing. iconic behaviour honestly.

Also the "Select vector map" combobox in the digitizer toolbar lets you switch between vector maps to be edited, super smoothly. it's giving convenience 💅

🎀 EDITING AN EXISTING VECTOR MAP

Select an existing vector map in the digitizer toolbar's "Select vector map" combobox. That map is then opened for editing and added to the current layer tree in the Layer Manager. And yes — same combobox, same energy — it also lets you easily switch between vector maps to be edited.

🌈 USING A RASTER BACKGROUND MAP

Want to digitize from a raster map? Simply load the map into the Map Display using the Layer Manager. Then start digitizing, see below for details. that's it, that's the tip 🍓

🦋 USING A VECTOR BACKGROUND MAP

The vector digitizer lets you select a "background" vector map. Loading it within the digitizer is different from just loading it via the Layer Manager — because this way, direct interaction with single vector features becomes possible. main character difference fr fr.

Vector features may be copied from the background map using the "Copy features from (background) vector map" tool, which lives in the "Additional tools" of the digitizer toolbar. And newly digitized vector features are snapped — within the given threshold — to the features from the background map. 👑

🛠️ DIGITIZER TOOLBAR 🛠️

  • Digitize new point — Add new point to vector map and optionally define its attributes (Ctrl+P).
  • Digitize new line — Add new line to vector map and optionally define its attributes (Ctrl+L).
  • Digitize new boundary — Add new boundary to vector map and optionally define its attributes (Ctrl+B).
  • Digitize new centroid — Add new centroid to vector map and optionally define its attributes (Ctrl+C).
  • Digitize new area — Add new area (closed boundary and one centroid inside) to vector map and optionally define its attributes (Ctrl+A).
  • Move vertex — Move selected vertex of linear feature. Thus shape of linear feature is changed (Ctrl+G).
  • Add vertex — Add new vertex to selected linear feature (shape not changed) (Ctrl+V).
  • Remove vertex — Remove selected vertex from linear feature (Ctrl+X). Thus shape of selected feature can be changed.
  • Edit line/boundary — Edit selected linear feature, add new segments or remove existing segments of 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 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 selected vector feature (based on its category settings) (Ctrl+K). Attributes can be also modified. Same functionality is accessible from Main toolbar "Query vector map (editable mode)".
  • Additional tools —
    • Break selected lines/boundaries at intersection — Split given vector line or boundary into two lines on 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 distance between them is not greater than snapping threshold value.
    • Copy categories — Copy category settings of selected vector feature to other vector features. Layer/category pairs of source vector features are appended to the target feature category settings. Existing layer/category pairs are not removed from category settings of the target features.
    • Copy features from (background) vector map — Make identical copy of selected vector features. If a background vector map has been selected from the Layer Manager, copy features from background vector map, not from the currently modified vector map.
    • Copy attributes — Duplicate attributes settings of selected vector feature to other vector features. New category(ies) is appended to the target feature category settings and attributes duplicated based on category settings of source vector features. Existing layer/category pairs are not removed from category settings of the target features.
    • Feature type conversion — Change 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 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 opposite direction to the first, it will be flipped. See also module v.build.polylines.
    • Snap selected lines/boundaries (only to nodes) — Snap vector features in given threshold. See also module v.clean. Note that this tool supports only snapping to nodes. Snapping to vector features from background vector map is not currently supported.
    • Split line/boundary — Split selected line or boundary on given position.
    • Query tool — Select vector features by defining a threshold for min/max length value (linear features or dangles).
    • Z-bulk labeling of 3D lines — Assign z coordinate values to 3D vector lines in 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 help page for the Digitizer (Ctrl+H).
  • Quit digitizing tool — Changes in vector map can be optionally discarded when digitizing session is quited (Ctrl+Q).

📝 NOTES 📝

Mouse button functions:

  • 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 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.

GRASS uses a topological vector format, meaning that a common boundary of two polygons is only stored once. When digitizing polygons it is thus important to be able to only draw each boundary once. When drawing a polygon adjacent to an existing polygon, one has 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. 🧚

📚 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

See also 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: Tuesday Sep 08 11:56:22 2026

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© 2003-2026 GRASS Development Team, GRASS 8.5.0 Reference Manual

and that's a wrap bestie 🫶 this whole page came to you curtesy of GRASS 8.5.0, filed under wxGUI.vdigit(1grass). go digitize something gorgeous 💅✨

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