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What? Everything about this comment is wrong.

> "Topology ignores such things as corners, distances, and convexity."

No, that's what topology is.

> "That makes it hard to combine with GIS systems."

No, GIS systems rely heavily on topology. Here are two definitions:

Topology: 1. the study of geometric properties and spatial relations unaffected by the continuous change of shape or size of figures.

Topography: 1. the arrangement of the natural and artificial physical features of an area.



The code samples used to demonstrate that library loads a trees.geojson file with features like 'oak' and 'maple', so I think he definitely meant 'topography'. What makes you say it's a topology library?


See the authors comment above. The library does do a lot more than topology, but the see the sections titled: joins, measurement and transformation. These are all topological functions.


Measurement is not topological.


You're right, they are. I'm used to seeing 'topology' describe very abstract things like open and compact sets.


See this video lecture for a very accessible explanation of what topology is (and is not): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdpbfOzkJzI


Your link is referring to algebraic topology. It is one of several subfields of general topology. See the opening paragraph that lists a few others:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology




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