Buffering

Buffering
Objects in space have their own impact contributed to their surrounding space. Buffering is the process of creation of a zone of specified distance, called Buffer zone, around features such as point, line or polygon features. Buffer zones are often set up to protect the environment, protect residential and commercial zones from industrial accidents or natural disasters, or to prevent violence.

In practical situations, one needs to buffer multiple regions (points, lines and polygons) simultaneously. This gives rise to the idea of buffer allocation and replacement. Data movement happens by making use of primitive buffer operations such as point buffer operation, line buffer operation and polygon buffer operations. Buffer management involves the process of allocation of buffers and replacement of buffers when not needed. Several allocation policies and replacement policies that have been used in the context of memory buffers in computer science are directly applicable here.

Types of buffering
Notes:
 * Performing Buffering to create buffer zones with one or more of the above mentioned combination(s) is possible.
 * Buffer zones often have dissolved boundaries so that there are no overlapping areas between the buffer zones. In some cases though, it may also be useful for boundaries of buffer zones to remain intact, so that each buffer zone is a separate polygon and so as to identify the overlapping areas.