Geometry restructuring — Operator family

These Operators change how geometry is divided into features, not where it is. The same area can be one feature, many features, or one feature made of many parts, and each choice answers a different question: “how much nature is there?” needs one dissolved area; “how many patches are there?” needs one feature per patch.

Part of the Operators families. Used in: Nature content layer (Task), Habitat network (Task).

Merge

Operator Schema: puts the features of several layers into one layer, unchanged. Overlapping features stay separate and keep overlapping.

Choices to record: which field says where each feature came from (QGIS adds layer and path automatically).

Note: the layers must have the same geometry type. Lines (hedges, streams) must first become polygons with a dilation.

Tools: QGIS Merge vector layers (Tool - QGIS).

Dissolve

Operator Schema: joins features into one, optionally per value of a field. Shared borders and overlaps disappear. Without a field, everything becomes one (multipart) feature.

Choices to record: dissolve all, or per category; whether separate pieces stay one multipart feature or become separate features (that is explode).

Tools: QGIS Dissolve (Tool - QGIS), or Buffer (Tool - QGIS) with Dissolve result.

Explode

Operator Schema: splits every multipart feature into one feature per part. After a dissolve, each separate piece becomes its own feature: one feature per cluster.

Note: each new feature keeps its parent’s attributes, including its id. In a GeoPackage two features cannot share a fid, and saving fails. Renumber the ids: Renumber feature ids (Tool - QGIS).

Tools: QGIS Multipart to singleparts (Tool - QGIS), or the Keep disjoint … separate option of Dissolve (Tool - QGIS) and Buffer (Tool - QGIS).