learning R for Geospatial analysis

R scripting, Geospatial analysisLearning R for Geospatial AnalysisCopyright o 2014 Packt PublishingAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrievalsystem, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior writtenpermission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded incritical articles or reviewsrt has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracyof the information presented However the information contained in this book issold without warranty, cither express or implied. Neither the author nor PaclPublishing and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damagescaused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this bookPackt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of thecompanies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitalsHowever, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this informationFirst published: December 2014Production reference: 1191214Published by Packt Publishing ltdLivery place35 Livery streetBirmingham b3 2PB UKISBN978-178398-436-7www.packtpub.comCreditsAuthorProject CoordinatorMichael dormanRashi KhivansaraReviewersProofreadersDr Amrinder aroraSimran BhogalDan hammerStephen CopestakeBaburao kambleMaria gouldDr robin lovelaceAmeesha GreenDipanjan sarkarDr makhan virdIndexerRekha nairCommissioning editorAkram hussainGraphicsAbhinash sahuAcquisition EditorGreg WildProduction coordinatorAlwinContent Development EditorMohammed fahadCover workAlwin reTechnical editorAnkita thakurCopy EditorsPranjali chAdithi shettyAbout the authorMichael Dorman is currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Geographyand Environmental Development, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His researchexplores the response of planted pine forests to changing climate through remotesensing and dendrochronology Ile uses r extensively for time series and spatialstatistical analyses and visualization. In spring 2013, he prepared and taught acourse named Introduction to Programming for Spatial data Analysis at the Ben-GurionUniversity of the negev introducing r as an environment for spatial data analysis toundergraduate Geography students. The course material served as a foundation forthLS DOOkMichael holds a Master's degree in Life Sciences from the Ben- gurion University ofthe Negev and a Bachelor's degree in Plant Sciences in Agriculture from The HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem. Ile has authored or coauthored eight papers in scientificliterature and actively participated in 18 scientific conferencesi would like to express my gratitude to all the people from whomI have learned more about r and to those who have created thiswonderful programming language. a special thanks goes to theexcellent team at Packt Publishing for making this book possibleThis book is dedicated to my wife, Hila, who unconditionallysupported me every step of the wayAbout the reviewersDr. Amrinder arora is an adjunct faculty member in the department ofComputer Science at the george Washington University. He teaches graduate andundergraduate courses in Computer Science, mostly related to the design andanalysis of computer algorithms and the design of data structures. I le is also theuthor of the book Analysis and Design of algorithms, Cognella Academic PublishingHe has been conferred the instructor of the year award by the department ofComputer Science at the george Washington University and has received a VIPGrants award by the bowie state University. You can read more about his researchathttp://www.standardwisdom.comAs part of his industry experience, he has served in the management teams ofleading technology companies, including BizMerlin, Edifecs, and NTELX. As part ofthe Affordable Care Act, Dr. Arora designed a health exchange connector, a leadingproduct in the $200 million market to connect insurance companies(payers) to thehealth insurance exchanges. As a leading expert in risk targeting, Dr. Arora led thetechnical design for Us FDa's predict system, which currently screens more than16 million imports a year. His efforts in supporting FDA's PREDICT program wererecognized by the FDa commissioner, Dr Margaret Hamburg. The transportationmanagement system designed by Dr. Arora for the port of Aqaba in Jordan won theaward for the most innovative product by the Intelligent Transportation Societyof americaDr Arora earned an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from the indianInstitute of Technology, Delhi, and a Master's degree and doctorate, both inComputer Science, from the George Washington University. He served as a reviewerfor numerous journals and conferences and many of his reviews have also beenpublished in ACM Computing ReviewsDan hammer is a data scientist and environmental economist who served as aPresidential Innovation Fellow at NASA as part of the White House program. He isa phd student at university of california, Berkeley and was formerly the chief datacientist at the world resources institute, where he led the technical team behindGlobal Forest Watch. Dan writes code in Python, R, and Clojure on subjects rangingfrom spatial econometrics to information theory. He is currently reviewing Clojure forData Science, Packt PublishingBaburao kamble is an assistant research professor of remote Sensing andGeospatial Data Analytics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). Currently,he works at UNL on developing machine learning and data mining algorithms usingBig data tools and techniques for climate and weather data. He has been involvedin teaching Geospatial Information Sciences, Data Analysis using R, Python forGeospatial data Analytics and matlaB courses at the graduate level. He is alsothe author of the upcoming book Practical Data Analysis Cookbook, Packt Publishing. Helikes to spend his free time with new and interesting data science developmentsDr Robin Lovelace is an environmental geographer with 5 years of experienceusing r for spatial analysis, map making, and statistics. He has coauthored thepopular free and open source online tutorial Introduction to visualising spatialdata in r(2014), and teaches r to a range of professional and academic audiencesRobins latest book Spatial microsimulation withr, CRC Press( which will be publishedin 2015)demonstrates methods to generate and analyze multilevel data. Bycombining individual and geographical-level data, the technique can provide newinsights into complex behaviors, for example, as an input into agent-based modelsRobin believes passionately in using open source technology to empower peopleto create a sustainable, post-carbon world-one in which we no longer depend onburning fossil fuels for a high quality of lifeDipanjan Sarkar is a data engineer at Data Weave, one of India's top Big Dataanalytics start-ups, where he works on data semantics information extraction naturallanguage processing, and machine learning. Prior to joining Data Weave, he workedas a graduate technical intern at Intel and received a Master,'s degree in InformationTechnology from the International Institute of Information Technology, BangaloreDipanjan is a technology enthusiast and loves Python and the start-up culture.Dr Makhan Virdi is a researcher at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.Hereceived his phd from the university of South Florida in 2013. His current researchinterests include management and visualization of geospatial and time series datafrom satellite imagery for biogeochemical dynamicsDr Virdi is also an independent researcher with a passion for using embeddedelectronics, robotics, and knowledge discovery to create machine augmentedintelligence systems. In his spare time he works on robots ambient intelligence, andsmart homes. You can read more about his research at TheXlabs comWww.Packtpub.comSupport files, eBooks, discount offers, and moreForsupportfilesanddownloadsrelatedtoyourbookpleasevisitwww.packtpub.cOmDid you know that Packt offers e book versions of every book published, with PDFandepubfilesavailableYoucanupgradetotheebookversionatwww.Packtpubcom and as a print book customer, you are entitled to a discount on the e Book copyGet in touch with us at service@packtpub com for more detailsAtwww.PacktPub.comyoucanalsoreadacollectionoffreetechnicalarticlessignup for a range of free newsletters and receive exclusive discounts and offers on Packtbooks and ebooksPACKTLIBhttps://www2.packtpub.com/books/subscription/packtlibDo you need instant solutions to your it questions? PacktLib is Packt's online digitalbook library. Here, you can search, access, and read Packt's entire library of booksWhy subscribe?Fully searchable across every book published by PacktCopy and paste, print, and bookmark contentOn demand and accessible via a web browserFree access for packt account holdersIfyouhaveanaccountwithpacktatwww.Packtpub.com,youcanusethistoaccessPacktLib today and view 9 entirely free books Simply use your login credentials forimmediate accessTable of contentsPrefaceChapter 1: The R Environment7Installing R and using the command lineDownloading rstalling R8Using r as a calculator9Coding with R beyond the command lineApproaches to editing R codeInstallation of Studio14Using studio14Evaluating expressions15Using arithmetic and logical operators15Using functionsDealing with warning and error messages20Getting help21Exploring the basic object types in R21Everything is an object22Storing data in data structures23Calling functions to perform operations23A short sample session23Summary25Chapter 2: Working with Vectors and Time Serieslectors- the basic data structures in r28Different types of vectors28Using the assignment operator to save an object30Removing objects from memory32Summarizing vector properties32