We can get a partial result by only considering our vector layers, and running some vector analysis tools on them. There are different methods for different type of analysis; however, we can group the most frequently used methods into the following four groups:
- Overlay analysis: Analyzing features according to their spatial relationships to other features. Common use cases are spatial queries and spatial joins.
- Proximity analysis: Analyzing the relationship of features based on some distances. The heart of this type in a traditional desktop GIS software is the buffer tool, while the rest of the work is basically overlay analysis.
- Neighborhood analysis: Analyzing (more often, statistically) neighbouring features of some input features. When we need to find the closest features to some input features, it is called a k-NN (k nearest neighbor) query.
- Network analysis...
