v.what.vect(1)

NAME
v.what.vect - Uploads vector values at positions of vector points to the table.

KEYWORDS
vector, sampling, database, position, querying, attribute table

SYNOPSIS
v.what.vect
v.what.vect --help
v.what.vect map=name [layer=string] column=name query_map=name [query_layer=string] query_column=name [dmax=float] [--help] [--verbose] [--quiet] [--ui]

  Flags:

--help
    Print usage summary

--verbose
    Verbose module output

--quiet
    Quiet module output

--ui
    Force launching GUI dialog

  Parameters:

map=name [required]
    Name of vector points map for which to edit attributes
    Or data source for direct OGR access

layer=string
    Layer number or name
    Vector features can have category values in different layers. This number determines which layer to use. When used with direct OGR access this is the layer name.
    Default: 1

column=name [required]
    Name of attribute column to be updated with the query result

query_map=name [required]
    Name of vector map to be queried
    Or data source for direct OGR access

query_layer=string
    Layer number or name
    Vector features can have category values in different layers. This number determines which layer to use. When used with direct OGR access this is the layer name.
    Default: 1

query_column=name [required]
    Name of attribute column to be queried

dmax=float
    Maximum query distance in map units (meters for ll)
    Default: 0.0

DESCRIPTION
v.what.vect transfers attributes from the query_map’s attribute table into the map’s attribute table. The module can be used to transfer attributes from the table of a polygon map into the attribute table of a point vector map, as well as the other way around, i.e., from a point map into the attribute table of a polygon map (See examples). The script is based on v.distance.

NOTES
The upload column into which the query results are stored must be present in map. Use v.db.addcolumn to add one if needed.

Use the dmax parameter to control the query distance tolerance, i.e., how far map’s points/centroids can be from the query_map features. For further options, use v.distance.

In case of a multipoint input map with several points having the same category number, it can happen that the query result is NULL if the same category number falls into different query_map polygons.

When transferring attributes from a point map into a polygon map, dmax has to be larger than zero, i.e., it will be determined by the distance between query points and polygon centroids. Importantly, distance is in meters for latitude-longitude locations.

In case that one or both input vector maps are 3D, features need to touch also in the 3rd dimension (z coordinate) in order to transfer attributes.

EXAMPLES
In this example, the ’hospitals’ point map in the North Carolina location is copied to the current mapset, a new attribute column is added and the urban names from the ’urbanarea’ polygon map are transferred to hospital points locations in ’myhospitals’ map:

g.copy vect=hospitals,myhospitals
v.db.addcolumn myhospitals column="urb_name varchar(25)"
v.what.vect myhospitals query_map=urbanarea column=urb_name query_column=NAME
# verification:
v.db.select myhospitals

In this example, city names, population data and others from Geonames.org country files are transferred to selected EU CORINE landuse/landcover classes ("Continuous urban fabric", 111, and "Discontinuous urban fabric", 112). Note: The example is in UTM projection to which the input maps have been projected beforehand.

# extract populated places from geonames
v.extract geonames_IT where="featurecla=’P’" output=geonames_IT_cities
# add new column
v.db.addcol corine_code111_112_cities column="gnameid double precision"
# transfer geonameid (3000m maximal distance between points and centroids)
v.what.vect corine_code111_112_cities query_map=geonames_IT_cities column=gnameid \
            query_column=geonameid dmax=3000
# now gnameid can be used for v.db.join to join further
# attributes from geonames.org

SEE ALSO
v.db.addcolumn, v.db.select, v.distance, v.rast.stats, v.what.rast, v.what.rast3, v.vect.stats

AUTHOR
Markus Neteler

SOURCE CODE

Available at: v.what.vect source code (history)

Accessed: Thursday Jun 04 03:32:21 2026

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