Sanitize Polygons

Cleans up degenerate polygon geometry — removes zero-area shapes, collinear vertices, self-intersections, and other geometric defects.

When to Use

• After importing from formats with loose geometry validation
• Before boolean operations that are sensitive to degenerate input
• When encountering errors in downstream processing tools

Options

Option	Description	Default
Remove zero-area	Delete polygons with zero area	On
Remove collinear	Remove unnecessary vertices on straight edges	On
Fix self-intersections	Resolve self-intersecting polygon boundaries	On
Tolerance	Distance threshold for vertex simplification	0.001
Selected layers only	Apply to selected layers instead of all	Off

How It Works

1. Zero-area removal — deletes degenerate polygons (e.g., lines disguised as polygons)
2. Collinear vertex removal — eliminates vertices that lie on a straight line between neighbors
3. Self-intersection repair — splits self-intersecting polygons into valid non-intersecting parts
4. Vertex deduplication — merges vertices closer than the tolerance

Technical Notes

• Sanitization is recommended before running boolean operations
• Collinear vertex removal reduces vertex count without changing shape
• Self-intersection repair may split one polygon into multiple polygons