v.net.visibility

Performs visibility graph construction.

Command linePython (grass.script)Python (grass.tools)

v.net.visibility input=name output=name [coordinates=east,north] [visibility=name] [--overwrite] [--verbose] [--quiet] [--qq] [--ui]

Example:

sh v.net.visibility input=name output=name

grass.script.run_command("v.net.visibility", input, output, coordinates=None, visibility=None, overwrite=None, verbose=None, quiet=None, superquiet=None)

Example:

python gs.run_command("v.net.visibility", input="name", output="name")

grass.tools.Tools.v_net_visibility(input, output, coordinates=None, visibility=None, overwrite=None, verbose=None, quiet=None, superquiet=None)

Example:

python tools = Tools() tools.v_net_visibility(input="name", output="name")

This grass.tools API is experimental in version 8.5 and expected to be stable in version 8.6.

Parameters

Command linePython (grass.script)Python (grass.tools)

input=name [required]
    Name of input vector map
    Or data source for direct OGR access
output=name [required]
    Name for output vector map
coordinates=east,north
    Coordinates
visibility=name
    Name of input vector map containing visible points
    Add points after computing the visibility graph
--overwrite
    Allow output files to overwrite existing files
--help
    Print usage summary
--verbose
    Verbose module output
--quiet
    Quiet module output
--qq
    Very quiet module output
--ui
    Force launching GUI dialog

input : str, required
    Name of input vector map
    Or data source for direct OGR access
    Used as: input, vector, name
output : str, required
    Name for output vector map
    Used as: output, vector, name
coordinates : tuple[float, float] | list[float] | str, optional
    Coordinates
    Used as: input, coords, east,north
visibility : str, optional
    Name of input vector map containing visible points
    Add points after computing the visibility graph
    Used as: input, vector, name
overwrite : bool, optional
    Allow output files to overwrite existing files
    Default: None
verbose : bool, optional
    Verbose module output
    Default: None
quiet : bool, optional
    Quiet module output
    Default: None
superquiet : bool, optional
    Very quiet module output
    Default: None

Returns:

result : grass.tools.support.ToolResult | None
If the tool produces text as standard output, a ToolResult object will be returned. Otherwise, None will be returned.

Raises:

grass.tools.ToolError: When the tool ended with an error.

DESCRIPTION

v.net.visibility computes the visibility graph of a vector map containing lines, areas (boundaries) and points. The visibility graph is the graph where the nodes are the end point of the lines, boundaries or simply points. There is an edge between two nodes if they are 'visible' to each other. Two nodes are visibible if there are no segments in between of them, i.e. the edge does not intersect any line or boundary in the vector map. This is useful to compute the shortest path in a vector map from any two points. To do this, first you need to compute the visibility graph and from that to compute the shortest path using v.net.path or d.path.

IMPORTANT: the algorithm doesn't work well with intersecting lines (that includes overlapping)

NOTES

If you compute a shortest path after computing the visibility graph you will notice that this path might go through a vertex of a line. If this is not what you wanted you might need to process the map in v.buffer, initially with a small value. Example:

sh v.buffer input=map output=bufferedmap buffer=1 type=point,line,area,boundary

The first argument is the input map. It supports lines, boundaries (so, areas) and points. For the algorithm was written to work with lines and boundaries not intersecting each other (that includes overlapping).
The resulting map containing the visibility graph is given in the output map.

If you need to add additional points to compute a shortest path between them afterwards you can use the coordinates parameter, e.g.:

sh coordinates=25556200,6686400,25556400,6686600

where 25556200,6686400 are the coordinate of the first point and 25556400,6686600 are the coordinates of the second point. Of course you can give as many points as you need. They will be added to the visibility graph and edges from them will be computed. You can always add those points after computing the visibility graph. Simply use the visibility parameter. The input will be the original vector map, the vis will be the computed visibility graph and the output the new visibility graph which will be the vis + the new points given with coordinate (edges will be computed as well).

sh v.net.visibility input=map visibility=vis_map output=new_vis_map \ coordinates=25556200,6686400,25556400,6686600

EXAMPLES

Example 1

A simple example (North Carolina sample data) showing how to use the module:

sh v.extract input=zipcodes_wake output=areas_7_11_25 cats=7,11,25 g.region vector=zipcodes_wake d.mon wx0 d.vect areas_7_11_25 v.net.visibility input=areas_7_11_25 output=graph d.vect graph d.vect areas_7_11_25 color=red type=boundary

Example 2

An example on how to use v.buffer along with the module:

sh v.buffer input=lines output=buffered_lines buffer=1 v.net.visibility input=buffered_lines output=graph d.vect graph d.vect lines col=red

Example 3

An example on how to use the coordinate parameter. This will compute the visibility graph of the vector map lines with the point 2555678,6686343:

sh v.net.visibility input=lines output=graph coordinates=2555678,6686343 d.vect graph d.vect lines col=red

Example 4

An example (North Carolina sample data) on how to use the coordinate parameter with the vis parameter. Here the vector map graph is computed then a new visibility graph is computed from it with the point 669547.97,208348.20 extra:

sh v.extract input=zipcodes_wake output=areas_7_11_25 cats=7,11,25 g.region vector=zipcodes_wake d.mon wx0 d.vect areas_7_11_25 v.net.visibility input=areas_7_11_25 output=graph v.net.visibility input=areas_7_11_25 visibility=graph output=new_graph \ coordinates=669547.97,208348.20 d.erase d.vect areas_7_11_25 echo "symbol basic/star 20 669547.97 208348.20 black red" | d.graph -m d.vect new_graph d.vect areas_7_11_25 color=red type=boundary

Example 5

An example for connections of points (Spearfish):

sh v.net.visibility input=archsites output=graph g.region vector=archsites d.mon wx0 d.vect graph d.vect archsites col=red

Example 6

Here is an example with artificial data.

Load data using here document syntax (Bash and unix-like commands lines only):

sh v.in.ascii input=- output=simple format=standard <<EOF VERTI: B 6 82.19908257 75.21788991 81.67889908 71.40321101 83.58623853 71.72522936 84.3293578 75.21788991 82.24862385 76.06009174 82.19908257 75.21788991 C 1 1 82.88897401 73.66318782 1 1 C 1 1 90.72645705 75.61248675 1 2 C 1 1 89.37944702 69.51012912 1 3 C 1 1 81.60108979 67.78669725 1 4 B 5 89.92752294 73.95458716 92.37981651 75.11880734 91.56238532 77.29862385 88.96146789 75.88669725 89.92752294 73.95458716 B 10 88.54036697 70.70963303 87.92192518 70.04087417 87.89633028 69.00045872 88.66460807 68.13372867 90.15108904 68.23290821 90.9426344 68.97588202 90.86880734 70.11513761 90.00144697 70.78336312 89.06055046 70.95733945 88.54036697 70.70963303 B 9 78.73119266 71.35366972 80.76238532 68.90137615 84.20550459 66.91972477 89.87798165 65.35917431 83.23494031 66.27685175 80.34278748 68.00837238 78.38484005 71.40292009 78.40917431 72.27018349 78.73119266 71.35366972 EOF

Compute the graph:

sh v.net.visibility input=simple output=graph

KNOWN ISSUES

In some cases when 3 points or nodes are collinear, some wrong edges are added. This happens only really rarly and shouldn't be a big problem. When two points have the exact same x coordinate and are visible, some wrong edges are added.

AUTHORS

Maximilian Maldacker
Mentor: Wolf Bergenheim

SOURCE CODE

Available at: v.net.visibility source code (history)
Latest change: Thursday Mar 12 10:17:31 2026 in commit 602425e

v.net.visibility

Parameters

DESCRIPTION

NOTES

EXAMPLES

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Example 4

Example 5

Example 6

KNOWN ISSUES

SEE ALSO

AUTHORS

SOURCE CODE