Statistics, Department of

The R Journal
Date of this Version
12-2017
Document Type
Article
Citation
The R Journal (December 2017) 9(2); Editor: Roger Bivand
Abstract
Integrating R with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) extends R’s statistical capabilities with numerous geoprocessing and data handling tools available in a GIS. QGIS is one of the most popular open-source GIS, and it furthermore integrates other GIS programs such as the System for Automated Geoscientific Analyses (SAGA) GIS and the Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) GIS within a single software environment. This and its QGIS Python API makes it a perfect candidate for console-based geoprocessing. By establishing an interface, the R package RQGIS makes it possible to use QGIS as a geoprocessing workhorse from within R. Compared to other packages building a bridge to GIS (e.g., rgrass7, RSAGA, RPyGeo), RQGIS offers a wider range of geoalgorithms, and is often easier to use due to various convenience functions. Finally, RQGISsupports the seamless integration of Python code using reticulate from within R for improved extendability.
Included in
Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing Commons, Programming Languages and Compilers Commons
Comments
Copyright 2017, The R Foundation. Open access material. License: CC BY 4.0