🛠️ Clip

Purpose: > Clip extracts input features that overlay the clip features. The output contains the same overall extent as the intersection, but only retains the geometry and attributes of one of the input layers. It is most commonly used to trim one layer by a polygon represent an area of interest.

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🎭 Illustration

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📋 Technical Specifications

Requirement	Detail
Input Feature Types	Any
Output Feature Type	Same
Map Name	07.Clip
inputs GDB	07.input_clip.geodatabase
output GDB	07.output_clip.geodatabase

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🧠 Logic & Arithmetic Operation

Logic: $A - (A-B)$

⚙️ Parameters & Conditions

Input Parameter: Input Features

Overlay Parameter: Clip Features

Geometry: Any but same

No. of Inputs: Two or more

Order: matter

Coordinate System: Same as 1st input layer

⚙️ Clip Tool: Input and Clip Combinations

🔧 Parameters

• Input Features: Can be Point, Line, or Polygon
• Clip Features: Must be the same geometry type or of greater dimension than the input
• Output Geometry: Same as the input

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📐 Geometry Hierarchy

• Polygon (2D) > Line (1D) > Point (0D)

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🔗 Valid Input–Clip Combinations

Format: (Input, Clip)

1. (Point, Point)
2. (Point, Line)
3. (Line, Line)
4. (Point, Polygon)
5. (Line, Polygon)
6. (Polygon, Polygon)

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🚩 Important Notes

• Unlike Union or Intersect, Clip is not commutative:

\[A \; \text{Clip} \; B \neq B \; \text{Clip} \; A\]

• For combinations with different geometries (2, 4, 5), output is not possible.
• For combinations with the same geometry type, results differ depending on the extent of the clip layer.
• If Point or Line are used as clip features, only coincident features are included in the output (since they cannot define an area extent).
• Overall, this gives nine possible scenarios to consider when starting experiments.

🐍 Arcpy Function

arcpy.analysis.CountOverlappingFeatures(in_features, out_feature_class, {min_overlap_count}, {out_overlap_table})

for more on function parameters, check: Arcpy Documentation Here.

Figures

🟢 Point–Point Clip

Input	Output

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🟢 Line–Line Clip

Input	Output

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🟢 Polygon–Polygon Clip

Input	Output (Yellow)	Output (Blue)

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🟢 Point–Line Clip

Input	Output

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🟢 Point–Polygon Clip

Input	Output