Description

The Bufferer can create a buffer with a variable width extracted from an attribute. It is particularly useful to visualize information from a GPS route such as speed.

For line features you would use a Chopper to chop the line into individual points. For very complex objects a Generalizer can be used before buffering. Also, in case of buffering lines, a LineJoiner and/or Snapper may work wonders.

Example

The attached workspace shows an example use of the Bufferer transformer.

In this example a GPS dataset consists of a number of waypoints. The waypoints are buffered, where the buffer size is proportional to the vehicle speed at that point. The idea is to show areas where vehicle speed is low to indicate possible areas of traffic congestion.

 

Workspace Screenshot

Output Screenshot

The narrower areas indicate slower moving traffic...