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I'm trying to create a new field defined as the area of the convex hull of the current feature, in the Field Calculator in QGIS 2.8.

Calculating the area of the current feature is easy ($area), and calculating the convex hull of the current feature is easy (convexHull($geometry)), but I can't find any way to calculate the area of that resulting geometry (as opposed to the geometry of the current feature).

I think I need to be able to either:

  • Apply an area calculation to that convex hull geometry in the Field Calculator -- this is what I'd prefer; or
  • Write a custom function -- there appears to be a free-standing area function in the Function Editor, but I can't figure out how to get a simple custom function defined and called properly; shouldn't need any arguments, as it's just the area of the convex hull of the current geometry; or
  • Create a new layer from an interim attribute that just contains the geometry of the convex hull -- then I could calculate the areas of those features in the new layer

Any suggestions on any of these approaches?

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    Haven't used this before but how about area(convex_hull($geometry)) where area returns the area of geometry polygon object, in this case, the convex polygon?
    – Joseph
    Mar 1, 2016 at 10:17
  • Joseph is spot on
    – MappaGnosis
    Mar 1, 2016 at 12:32
  • Exactly! That was my first thought. Seems like that should obviously work, but the Output preview says that the "Expression is invalid" with a "Parser Error: syntax error, unexpected '(', expecting $end".
    – Alec Ramsay
    Mar 1, 2016 at 14:56
  • convexHull($geometry) works and returns a geometry (the function is convexHull vs. convex_hull), but area(convexHull($geometry)) gives the error. Seems no obvious way to operate on the resulting geometry vs. the geometry of the current feature.
    – Alec Ramsay
    Mar 1, 2016 at 15:13
  • I've almost got the second approach, a custom function, working. I created this little script in the Function Editor: from qgis.core import * @qgsfunction(args=0, group='Custom') def AreaOfConvexHull(value1, feature, parent): return QgsGeometry.area(QgsGeometry.convexHull(feature.geometry())) In the Output preview, it displays good looking result (vs. an error). However, when I use the function to create a new attribute, I get a popup with the msg: "QgqGeometry.convexHull(): first argument of unbound method must have type 'QgsGeometry'. What am I doing wrong? So close ...
    – Alec Ramsay
    Mar 2, 2016 at 19:02

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The UPDATE in this post explains BOTH how to write the kind of custom function I was trying to write AND the specific function I needed. With this custom area function, the expression I need becomes simply area(convexHull($geometry)).

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