Packages

R packages and tools for geospatial data, mostly under the hypertidy organisation. Install development versions from r-universe:

options(repos = c(
  hypertidy = "https://hypertidy.r-universe.dev",
  mdsumner  = "https://mdsumner.r-universe.dev",
  CRAN      = "https://cloud.r-project.org"))

GDAL core

The foundation: low-level access to GDAL without imposing a data model.

Package Description
vapour vapour status badge Low-level GDAL API for R. Raster and vector read via RasterIO and the Warper, format-agnostic. The workhorse.
whatarelief whatarelief status badge Obtain raster data via the GDAL warper. High-level wrappers around vapour for common tasks.
controlledburn controlledburn status badge Don’t materialize, just rasterize! GDAL rasterization without needing the output in memory.
sds sds status badge Spatial Data Sources — a curated collection of interesting GDAL-readable data source URLs and connection strings.
lazysf lazysf status badge Lazy dplyr backend for GDAL vector data sources. Query without loading.
ximage ximage status badge Good image(). Native-resolution raster plotting done right.

Raster and grid logic

Grid abstractions, rasterization, and cell-based operations.

Package Description
vaster vaster status badge Grid logic, without any pesky data. Extent, dimension, resolution, cell indexing — no pixels required.
fasterize fasterize status badge High-performance polygon-to-raster conversion.
tabularaster tabularaster status badge Tidy raster extraction — cell numbers as data frames, not lists of matrices.

Projections and coordinate systems

Thin wrappers around PROJ for coordinate transformation and projection analysis.

Package Description
PROJ PROJ status badge Straightforward R wrapper for the PROJ library (≥6). Coordinate transformation for generic data.
reproj reproj status badge Reproject anything — generic methods for matrices, data frames, spatial objects.
tissot Tissot Indicatrix: visualize and quantify local distortion in map projections.
graticule graticule status badge Meridional and parallel lines for maps, with control over placement and extent.
geodist geodist status badge Ultra lightweight, ultra fast calculation of geodesic distances.
gproj Projection selection — choose an appropriate map projection for a given region.

Mesh and topology

Decompose spatial data into mesh primitives — edges, triangles, quads — for 3D visualization and topological operations.

Package Description
silicate silicate status badge A general form for complex data. Path, arc, edge, and triangle models that normalize geometry and preserve topology.
anglr anglr status badge Mesh topology and 3D visualization for spatial data. Combines raster and vector as textured meshes via rgl.
quadmesh quadmesh status badge Raster grids as indexed quad meshes — lossless reprojection of cells, 3D plotting, barycentric interpolation.
polymer Polygon overlay via constrained triangulation. General intersections through a shared triangle pool.

NetCDF and multidimensional

Tools for navigating and extracting from NetCDF, Zarr, and other array-based data.

Package Description
tidync tidync status badge Tidy approach to NetCDF. Explore grids, filter dimensions, extract as arrays or tibbles. rOpenSci.
ncmeta ncmeta status badge Straightforward NetCDF metadata — variables, dimensions, attributes, grids, axes in tidy form.

Data access

Packages for getting at specific data sources.

Package Description
ceramic ceramic status badge Read image server tiles direct with GDAL, or cache locally. Mapbox, elevation, satellite imagery.
L3bin L3bin status badge Integerized Sinusoidal Binning Scheme for NASA Level 3 ocean colour data.

Antarctic and Southern Ocean

Packages for Antarctic research, mostly under the AustralianAntarcticDivision org.

Package Description
raadtools Tools for synoptic environmental spatial data — sea ice, SST, altimetry, ocean colour, topography. Read functions for the AAD data library.
raadfiles File-level index and configuration for the raadtools data collection.
blueant Environmental data for Antarctic and Southern Ocean science. Data source definitions for bowerbird-based mirroring.
sooty Data source catalogues for Southern Ocean ecosystem research. Cloud-native access to object storage collections.
SOmap Southern Ocean round maps — polar stereographic with easy reprojection, management layers, and plotting helpers.
angstroms Tools for working with ROMS (Regional Ocean Modelling System) grid data in R.
palr Colour palettes for data — SST, chlorophyll, sea ice concentration, bathymetry. Mapped colour scales.
rbgm Read and work with Atlantis Box Geometry Model files — topology, faces, boxes as linked tables.
bgmfiles Example BGM files for the Atlantis whole-of-ecosystem model.
measoshapes Southern Ocean regionalization boundaries for MEASO (Marine Ecosystem Assessment for the Southern Ocean).
aceecostats Ecosystem status and trends assessment — zonal regions, analysis behind Trebilco et al. 2019.
orsifronts Orsi and Park/Durand fronts of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current as spatial data.
cconvention CCAMLR Convention Area boundaries built from scratch in spatial form.
cmemsarco Cloud-native access to Copernicus Marine ARCO Zarr data stores.

Tools and infrastructure

Not R packages — Python tools, Docker images, and operational infrastructure.

Tool Description
gdal-builds Docker images for bleeding-edge GDAL with R and Python aligned. Rocker-based, for CI and development.
geositrep Diagnose R geospatial ecosystem version mismatches — GDAL, PROJ, GEOS across packages.
pixtract High-performance Python package for tile-grouped raster value extraction.
estinel Satellite imagery processing pipeline with incremental marker-based updates.

Packages are distributed via hypertidy r-universe and mdsumner r-universe. Many are also on CRAN. Source code is on GitHub under hypertidy, mdsumner, and AustralianAntarcticDivision.