Minimum Bounding Circle

Draft: written, not yet checked by a person Operation · minimum-bounding-circle

The smallest circle that contains each feature, as a polygon.

Pitfall. The circle is returned as a polygon with a number of segments each engine chooses, so its area is a little less than the true circle's.

Pitfall. In a geographic CRS the circle is drawn in degrees, which is an ellipse on the ground.

About this operation
Also called	minimum enclosing circle, smallest enclosing circle, Minimum Bounding Geometry (circle)
Group	`vector/geometry`
Checks	`crs.measure, geometry.valid`
Pitfalls	2 listed above
Columbus tool	Not stated
Notes	Not stated
Status	active
Broader	Not stated
Narrower	Not stated
Related	`envelope` `minimum-bounding-rectangle` `convex-hull`

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_MinimumBoundingCircle`	`layer` → `geometry`	A Spark SQL function: arguments are columns or column names, run over a Spark DataFrame.
`geopandas`	`geopandas.GeoSeries.minimum_bounding_circle`	Not stated	A method of the GeoSeries: one circle per row.
`postgis`	`st_minimumboundingcircle`	`layer` → `#1`	The second argument sets the segments per quarter circle (48 by default); ST_MinimumBoundingRadius returns the centre and radius.
`qgis`	`native:minimumenclosingcircle`	`layer` → `INPUT` `output` → `OUTPUT`	SEGMENTS sets the number of segments in the whole circle (72 by default); adds the radius and area as fields.
`sf`	`sf::st_minimum_bounding_circle`	`layer` → `x`	Needs GEOS 3.8 or later.
`shapely`	`shapely.minimum_bounding_circle`	`layer` → `geometry`	minimum_bounding_radius returns only the radius.
`whiteboxtools`	`MinimumBoundingCircle`	`layer` → `input` `output` → `output`	features (true by default) gives one circle per feature; false gives one for the whole layer.