Raster to Points

Draft: written, not yet checked by a person Operation · raster-to-points

One point at the centre of every raster cell that has a value, carrying that value.

Pitfall. A large raster becomes millions of points; clip it first.

Pitfall. Engines differ on whether nodata cells are skipped.

About this operation
Also called	Raster To Point, pixels to points, cell centroids, raster to vector points
Group	`raster/conversion`
Checks	`raster.nodata`
Pitfalls	2 listed above
Columbus tool	Not stated
Notes	Not stated
Status	active
Broader	Not stated
Narrower	Not stated
Related	`raster-to-polygons` `extract-values-to-points`

Parameters

Not stated

Direction	Name	Type	Geometry	Note
Input	`raster`	raster	Not stated	Not stated
Output	`output`	vector	point	Not stated

Engine	Tool	Parameters	Differences
`grass`	`r.to.vect`	`raster` → `input` `output` → `output`	None noted Preset: `{"type":"point"}`
`postgis-raster`	`st_pixelascentroids`	`raster` → `rast`	Returns rows of (geom, val, x, y); exclude_nodata_value (true) skips nodata cells.
`qgis`	`native:pixelstopoints`	`raster` → `INPUT_RASTER` `output` → `OUTPUT`	Nodata cells are skipped; FIELD_NAME names the value field (VALUE).
`terra`	`terra::as.points`	`raster` → `x`	na.rm (on by default) skips cells that are NA.
`whiteboxtools`	`RasterToVectorPoints`	`raster` → `input` `output` → `output`	None noted