Package org.opengis.geometry.primitive

Set of geometric objects that are not decomposed further into other primitives. The following is adapted from Feature Geometry (Topic 1) specification.

The Geometric primitive package contains all the geometric primitives and supporting data types used in describing their boundaries. A geometric primitive is a geometric object that is not decomposed further into other primitives in the system. This includes curves and surfaces, even though they are composed of curve segments and surface patches, respectively. Those curve segments and surface patches cannot exist outside the context of a primitive.

NOTE: Most geometric primitives are decomposable infinitely many times. Adding a centre point to a line may split that line into two separate lines. A new curve drawn across a surface may divide that surface into two parts, each of which is a surface. This is the reason that the normal definition of primitive as "non-decomposable" is not plausible in a geometry model - the only non-decomposable object in geometry is a point.

Any geometric object that is used to describe a feature is a collection of geometric primitives. A collection of geometric primitives may or may not be a geometric complex. Geometric complexes have additional properties such as closure by boundary operations and mutually exclusive component parts. Primitive and Complex share most semantics, in the meaning of operations and attributes. There is an exception in that a Primitive shall not contain its boundary (except in the trivial case of Point where the boundary is empty), while a Complex shall contain its boundary in all cases.