build_lines {spatsoc}

Build Lines

Description

build_lines generates a simple feature collection with LINESTRINGs from a data.table. The function accepts a data.table with relocation data, individual identifiers, a sorting column and a projection. The relocation data is transformed into LINESTRINGs for each individual and, optionally, combination of columns listed in splitBy. Relocation data should be in two columns representing the X and Y coordinates.

Usage

build_lines(
  DT = NULL,
  projection = NULL,
  id = NULL,
  coords = NULL,
  sortBy = NULL,
  splitBy = NULL
)

Arguments

DT

input data.table

projection

numeric or character defining the coordinate reference system to be passed to sf::st_crs. For example, either projection = "EPSG:32736" or projection = 32736.

id

Character string of ID column name

coords

Character vector of X coordinate and Y coordinate column names

sortBy

Character string of date time column(s) to sort rows by. Must be a POSIXct.

splitBy

(optional) character string or vector of grouping column name(s) upon which the grouping will be calculated

Details

R-spatial evolution

Please note, spatsoc has followed updates from R spatial, GDAL and PROJ for handling projections, see more at https://r-spatial.org/r/2020/03/17/wkt.html.

In addition, build_lines previously used sp::SpatialLines but has been updated to use sf::st_as_sf and sf::st_linestring according to the R-spatial evolution, see more at https://r-spatial.org/r/2022/04/12/evolution.html.

Notes on arguments

The projection argument expects a numeric or character defining the coordinate reference system. For example, for UTM zone 36N (EPSG 32736), the projection argument is either projection = 'EPSG:32736' or projection = 32736. See details in sf::st_crs() and https://spatialreference.org for a list of EPSG codes.

The sortBy argument is used to order the input DT when creating sf LINESTRINGs. It must a column in the input DT of type POSIXct to ensure the rows are sorted by date time.

The splitBy argument offers further control building LINESTRINGs. If in your input DT, you have multiple temporal groups (e.g.: years) for example, you can provide the name of the column which identifies them and build LINESTRINGs for each individual in each year.

build_lines is used by group_lines for grouping overlapping lines generated from relocations.

Value

build_lines returns an sf LINESTRING object with a line for each individual (and optionally splitBy combination).

Individuals (or combinations of individuals and splitBy) with less than two relocations are dropped since it requires at least two relocations to build a line.

See Also

group_lines

Other Build functions: build_polys()

Examples

# Load data.table
library(data.table)


# Read example data
DT <- fread(system.file("extdata", "DT.csv", package = "spatsoc"))

# Cast the character column to POSIXct
DT[, datetime := as.POSIXct(datetime, tz = 'UTC')]

# EPSG code for example data
utm <- 32736

# Build lines for each individual
lines <- build_lines(DT, projection = utm, id = 'ID', coords = c('X', 'Y'),
            sortBy = 'datetime')

# Build lines for each individual by year
DT[, yr := year(datetime)]
lines <- build_lines(DT, projection = utm, id = 'ID', coords = c('X', 'Y'),
            sortBy = 'datetime', splitBy = 'yr')