Vector to Raster Conversion

In some investigations, it may be necessary to convert a vector coverage into a raster image in order to run FRAGSTATS. It is critical that great care be taken during the rasterization process and that the resulting raster image be carefully scrutinized for accurate representation of the original image. During the rasterization process, it is possible for disjunct patches to join and vice versa. This problem can be quite severe (e.g., resulting in numerous 1-cell patches) if the cell size chosen for the rasterization is too large relative to the minimum patch dimension in the vector image. In general, a cell size less than ½ the narrowest dimension of the smallest patches is necessary to avoid these problems.