shapely-polyskel
Implementation of the straight skeleton algorithm as described by Felkel and Obdržálek in their 1998 conference paper Straight skeleton implementation.
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes, if you need straight skeleton computation for real-world geometric problems like floor plans or building contours and can tolerate the algorithm's known limitations. No, if you require a modern, fully correct implementation—the author recommends Stefan Huber's research for that. The low install friction and lack of security issues make it safe to try, but verify the algorithm's behavior on your specific inputs first.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Requires Python 3.10 or later.
- Low friction; pure Python wheel with only two runtime dependencies (euclid3 and shapely).
- Maintenance is aging—last release was 586 days ago and the repository has minimal activity (3 stars), though it remains unarchived and the implementation is acknowledged as dated and imperfect for certain inputs.
License · maintenance · safety
copyleft license (copyleft) — Licensed under LGPLv3 (copyleft). You may use and modify the package freely, but derivative works and combined distributions must also be licensed under compatible terms and include source code availability.
last release 2025-01-05 (586 days) · last repo commit 2025-10-09 · 3 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 73,570 downloads/mo, #14,975 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
from shapely_polyskel import skeletonize
rectangle = [(40, 40), (40, 310), (520, 310), (520, 40)]
skeleton = skeletonize(polygon=rectangle)- Whether the implementation's known limitations (acknowledged as 'a bit crap' and incorrect for certain polygons) affect your specific use case.
- Performance characteristics and scalability for large or complex polygons.
What it is and what it does
shapely-polyskel implements the straight skeleton algorithm, a geometric technique that computes a medial axis—a set of line segments representing the 'skeleton' of a polygon. It is a fork of an earlier implementation and is based on the 1998 Felkel and Obdržálek algorithm. The package works with shapely Polygon objects and accepts polygons with holes, returning skeleton edges, source points, ridges, and sinks.
The algorithm is dated and the implementation does not attempt to fix known correctness issues; it works reasonably well for real-world inputs like country contours and floor plans but may fail on certain edge cases. It depends on shapely for geometry representation and euclid3 for vector math. The package is in beta status with low install friction, though maintenance is aging.
Use it for
- Generate roof structures from building footprints or floor plans.
- Compute medial axes for polygon simplification or offset operations.
- Analyze country or region contours to extract skeleton features.
- Create layout networks or centerline representations from polygonal shapes.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes, if you need straight skeleton computation for real-world geometric problems like floor plans or building contours and can tolerate the algorithm's known limitations.
No, if you require a modern, fully correct implementation—the author recommends Stefan Huber's research for that. The low install friction and lack of security issues make it safe to try, but verify the algorithm's behavior on your specific inputs first.
Install
shapely-polyskel on PyPI
Before you install
Low friction; pure Python wheel with only two runtime dependencies (euclid3 and shapely). Maintenance is aging—last release was 586 days ago and the repository has minimal activity (3 stars), though it remains unarchived and the implementation is acknowledged as dated and imperfect for certain inputs.
Requires Python 3.10 or later.
License in practice
Licensed under LGPLv3 (copyleft). You may use and modify the package freely, but derivative works and combined distributions must also be licensed under compatible terms and include source code availability.
Quickstart
from shapely_polyskel import skeletonize
rectangle = [(40, 40), (40, 310), (520, 310), (520, 40)]
skeleton = skeletonize(polygon=rectangle)Verify before relying
- Whether the implementation's known limitations (acknowledged as 'a bit crap' and incorrect for certain polygons) affect your specific use case.
- Performance characteristics and scalability for large or complex polygons.
Package facts
| License | copyleft license copyleft |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.10 |
| Install friction | Low. Pure-Python wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | 2 packageseuclid3shapely |
| Maintenance | Aging 586 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 73,570 / month, #14,975 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Development Status :: 4 - BetaIntended Audience :: DevelopersIntended Audience :: Science/ResearchLicense :: OSI Approved :: GNU Lesser General Public License v3 (LGPLv3)Operating System :: MacOSOperating System :: Microsoft :: WindowsOperating System :: UnixProgramming Language :: Python :: 3Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12Topic :: Scientific/Engineering :: GIS |
Evidence: shapely_polyskel-0.1.2-py3-none-any.whl
Tags
Let your AI agent find packages like this
Example. Real query, live index.
You found this page by searching. An agent finds it by wishing: SkillFed indexes 14,416 PyPI packages by what they can do, searchable in plain language.
wish › “straight skeleton algorithm”
- shapely-polyskelComputes the straight skeleton of a polygon, a geometric medial axis…
- skanAnalyzes skeleton (thin object) images to extract and characterize…
- sphinx-basic-ngProvides a modern, minimal Sphinx theme skeleton for building custom…
Give your agent the search over MCP, or paste the wish link into any chat.
More GIS packages
Shapely provides Python tools for creating, manipulating, and analyzing 2D geometric objects (points, lines, polygons) using the GEOS library, with both scalar and vectorized NumPy-based operations.
pyproj provides a Python interface to PROJ, enabling cartographic projections and coordinate system transformations for geospatial applications.
GeoPandas extends pandas DataFrames to handle geographic data, combining pandas operations with shapely geometry and spatial analysis capabilities that would otherwise require a spatial database.
Install it if you work with geographic data in Python and want to avoid setting up a spatial database or learning a separate GIS tool.
geopy is a Python client for geocoding and distance calculation that converts addresses to coordinates and vice versa using multiple web-based geocoding services, and computes geodesic and great-circle distances between geographic points.
Install it if you need geocoding or distance calculations in your application.
Pyogrio provides fast, bulk-oriented read and write access to vector spatial data formats (Shapefile, GeoPackage, GeoJSON, etc.) via GDAL/OGR bindings, typically for use with GeoPandas GeoDataFrames.
h3 provides Python bindings to Uber's H3 geospatial indexing library, converting geographic coordinates into hierarchical hexagonal grid cells and performing spatial operations on them.
See also descartes · pyclipper · mapbox-earcut · skan · odc-geo · reproj · quadrilateral-fitter · squarify