Minimum Bounding Rectangle

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

The smallest-area rectangle, at any angle, that contains each feature.

Pitfall. Some engines can minimise width, length or perimeter instead of area, which gives a different rectangle.

Pitfall. Angles and areas in a geographic CRS are measured in degrees.

About this operation
Also called	oriented envelope, minimum rotated rectangle, oriented minimum bounding box, Minimum Bounding Geometry (rectangle by area)
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` `convex-hull` `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_OrientedEnvelope`	`layer` → `geometry`	A Spark SQL function: arguments are columns or column names, run over a Spark DataFrame.
`geopandas`	`geopandas.GeoSeries.minimum_rotated_rectangle`	Not stated	A method of the GeoSeries: one rectangle per row.
`postgis`	`st_orientedenvelope`	`layer` → `#1`	Returns a point or a line for degenerate input.
`qgis`	`native:orientedminimumboundingbox`	`layer` → `INPUT` `output` → `OUTPUT`	Adds the rectangle's width, height, angle, area and perimeter as fields.
`sf`	`sf::st_minimum_rotated_rectangle`	`layer` → `x`	Needs GEOS 3.9 or later.
`shapely`	`shapely.oriented_envelope`	`layer` → `geometry`	minimum_rotated_rectangle is the same function under its older name.
`whiteboxtools`	`MinimumBoundingBox`	`layer` → `input` `output` → `output`	criterion chooses what to minimise: area (the default), length, width or perimeter. features (true by default) gives one rectangle per feature; false gives one for the whole layer.