SOLAMAC Workshop - Spatial Analysis and Mapping in R

Josh M. London

2018-10-31

Section 1 Prerequisites

For best results, the user should have the latest version of R (https://www.r-project.org/) and RStudio (https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/) installed.

The next step is to install a variet of packages that will be needed for spatial analysis and creating maps in R. We will start with those packages available from CRAN.

install.packages(c(
  "tidyverse",
  "sf",
  "devtools"
))

The package rgeos currently has a bug that prevents proper installation on some systems. So, we will use the rgeos::install_version() function to install the previous version.

devtools::install_version("rgeos", version = "0.3-28")

Lastly, we will install the ptolemy package which provides access to the Global High-Resolution Geography for shoreline data. This will provide easy access to basemaps of global land masses. The package is not released to CRAN and so we will use devtools::install_github()

devtools::install_github('jmlondon/ptolemy')
# if asked, do not upgrade the rgeos install

The ptolemy package needs to download and install the source data before you can access the data.

{ install-gshhg, eval = FALSE} ptolemy::install_gshhg()

At this point, you should be ready to proceed with the examples provided in this book. Each chapter is a separate example and each tries to introduce you to elements of the sf and ggplot2 / ggspatial packages that make importing, manipulating, and creating maps in R relatively easy.