Envelope

Draft: written, not yet checked by a person Operation · envelope

The smallest rectangle aligned with the coordinate axes that contains each feature.

Pitfall. Engines differ on whether they return a box for each feature or one box for the whole layer.

Pitfall. The box follows the CRS's axes, so the same features have different envelopes in different CRSs.

Pitfall. The envelope of a point, or of a horizontal or vertical line, is a point or a line, not a polygon.

About this operation
Also called	bounding box, bbox, Minimum Bounding Geometry (envelope), Bounding boxes, extent polygon
Group	`vector/geometry`
Checks	`geometry.valid`
Pitfalls	3 listed above
Columbus tool	Not stated
Notes	Not stated
Status	active
Broader	Not stated
Narrower	Not stated
Related	`convex-hull` `minimum-bounding-rectangle` `minimum-bounding-circle`

Parameters

Not stated

Direction	Name	Type	Geometry	Note
Input	`layer`	vector	Not stated	Not stated
Output	`output`	vector	polygon	Not stated

Engine	Tool	Parameters	Differences
`apache-sedona`	`sedona.sql.ST_Envelope`	`layer` → `geometry`	A Spark SQL function: arguments are columns or column names, run over a Spark DataFrame.
`geopandas`	`geopandas.GeoSeries.envelope`	Not stated	A property of the GeoSeries: one box per row; total_bounds gives the layer's extent as numbers.
`postgis`	`st_envelope`	`layer` → `#1`	Returns a point or a line for degenerate boxes; the coordinates are rounded to float precision.
`qgis`	`native:boundingboxes`	`layer` → `INPUT` `output` → `OUTPUT`	One box per feature, with its width, height, area and perimeter as fields.
`shapely`	`shapely.envelope`	`layer` → `geometry`	One box per geometry.
`turf-js`	`turf.envelope`	`layer` → `geojson`	One box around all the features given, not one per feature. Turf works on GeoJSON in longitude/latitude (WGS 84): the box follows longitude and latitude, not the projected CRS's axes.
`whiteboxtools`	`MinimumBoundingEnvelope`	`layer` → `input` `output` → `output`	features (true by default) gives one box per feature; false gives one box for the whole layer.