QGIS - Merging polygons based on distance

Question

How can I merge not overlapping polygons? I'm trying to set up a model that merges polygons that are within 500m from each other, at closest edge of the polygon.

I have tried with shortest line between features, but dont know how to extract the length from the line and add it to the polygons for so to try to use the merge polygon feature if that possible.

is there a easier way?

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was looking for something like aggrigate polygons that you find in arcgis. Figured i coud use join attributes to nearest directly on the polygon and then remove duplicated.

Answer 1

Do you mean 500m from the closest points of two polygons, or centroids?

What about using buffer? You could create a layer that adds buffers of 250m based on your polygons. Then all buffer polygons that touch should be merged.

Then, one would need to keep track of which polygons in the buffered layer are merged and do a corresponding merge in the original layer, which would then be multipolygons.

Sorry if the answer is a bit unclear, it is just an idea of what you could try.