African drone and data academy

GIS and Data Analytics Module

Ir. Emmanuel Chinkaka

echinkaka@must.ac.mw
+265997559996
20th August 2020
GIS Programming with R
 What you will learn?
 This section of the course is designed to :

– Serve as an introduction to R language and its uses

– Teach you the basics of R syntax
– Illustrate some of R‟s graphical capabilities
 What is R?
 R is a language and environment for
statistical computing and graphics
 R environment has the following:
– An effective data handling and storage facility
– A suit of operators for calculations on arrays, matrices
– A large, coherent, integrated collection of intermediate tools for
data analysis
– Graphical facilities for data analysis and display
– a well developed, simple and effective programming
language.
Why use R for Mapping and Spatial
Data Analysis?
 Has advanced analysis, modelling and visualization capabilities
 Is multi-platform
 R is open source
 R has a wide range of packages which makes it support
advanced geospatial statistics, modelling and visualization
 R is user friendly -RStudio IDE has made it so
 Has a bridge to other GIS software
 R supports interactive mapping
 R is an interpreted language:
– code entered into the console is immediately executed and the result
printed rather than waiting for the immediate stage of compilation
Why use R for Mapping and Spatial
Data Analysis?
 Has advanced analysis, modelling and visualization capabilities
 Is multi-platform
 R is open source
 R has a wide range of packages which makes it support
advanced geospatial statistics, modelling and visualization
 R is user friendly -RStudio IDE has made it so
 Has a bridge to other GIS software
 R supports interactive mapping
 R is an interpreted language:
– code entered into the console is immediately executed and the result
printed rather than waiting for the immediate stage of compilation
RStudio
 RStudio
 RStudio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for R
 RStudio components:
– A console
– Syntax_highlighting editor
– Work space management
 RStudio is available in open source and commercial editions
 RStudio runs on the desktop(Windows, Mac and Linux) or in a
browser connected to RStudio Server
 Installing RStudio

 Download and install the latest free version

of RStudio Desktop based on your platform
– Webpage:https://rstudio.com/products/rstudio/do
wnload/#download

 RStudio requires R. Download the latest

version of R compatible to your platform:
– Webpage: https://CRAN.R-project.org
 Rstudio
 When you just open a new Rstudio project,
the GUI is as shown below:
 RStudio

Script: Where Environment/History/

you write your Connections
code

Files/Plots/Packages
Console: Where /Help/Viewer
R code is
executed
 RStudio
 Click on File>New File>R Script script to
open a new R script

 An R script is a an editor where you write

your code
Setting a working directory(wd) in
RStudio

 Before you begin working in R, you should set your

working directory
 Working directory: folder to hold all your
files(scripts, input data and outputs eg. “C/R GIS
short course”
 To change wd in Rstudio:
– Select main menu Session>>Set Working Directory>>..
– From files tab click More>>Set As Working Directory
 Uses the current location of the files as your wd
Setting wd in
RStudio
 Setting a wd in RStudio
 A wd can also be set in the Console with the
setwd() command:
 Example: the command below sets the r and
gis course folder located in C drive as a
working directory
– setwd(“C/GIS in R Codes”)
 To check the file path of current directory:
– getwd()
 RStudio Projects(.Rproj files)

 Contains information about the specific

settings you may have set for a project.

 Open or create projects using the drop down

menu in the top left-hand corner of RStudio
R Project drop down menu

 You can create new projects

from existing or new
directories with “New
Project….”
 When you click “Open
Project…”, wd is
automatically set to the Rproj
file‟s location
 Any projects you have
created or used recently will
show up in the “Project List”
 R scripts
 Rstudio‟s source tab serves as a built-in text
editor

 Commands are written down before executing

functions at the console

 Importance of scripting:
– Allows others to reproduce your work
– Serves as instruction/reminder on how to perform a
task
 Basics of R scripting
 To write script, open a new R script file by clicking
File>New>File>R Script.

 Within the text editor, you can type out a sequence of functions

 Place each function on a separate line

 If a function has a long list of arguments, place each argument on a

separate line

 A command can be executed from the text editor by placing the cursor
on a line and pressing Ctrl+Enter, or clicking the Run button.

 An entire script can be executed by clicking the Source button

R scripting
Saving R Files
 Several types of files that can be saved:;
– Workspace
– Script
– History
– graphics
R script(.R)
 Is a text file of R commands that you have
typed

 To save R scripts in Rstudio:

– Click save button from R script tab and save with
the .R extension
– To open R script, click the file icon
 R workspace(.Rdata)
 Consists of all data objects created or loaded
during the R session
 The workspace file ,.Rdata is saved in the
working directory.
 You can save or load your workspace at any
time during your R session from the menu:
 Session>Save Workspace As…, or the
save button on the Environment Tab
 Workspace(.Rdata)

 R command for saving workspace

– save.image(file=“workspace.Rdata”)
R Graphics
 These can be saved in various formats eg,
pdf, png, jpeg etc.
 R help
 R has an inbuilt help facility
 Used to get information on any particular
 Examples:
– help(solve) or ?solve: gets more information on the
solvefunction
– help.start(): launches a Web browser that allows the help
pages to be browsed with hyperlinks
– ??: help search command for searching help in various
ways
– ?help.search : help search command for searching help
in various ways
– example(topic): runs examples on a help topic
 R syntax
 R is case sensitive: „A‟ and „a‟ are different
symbols and would refer to different
variables
 R names can be alphanumeric symbols
plus „ . ‟, „_‟.
 R names must start with „ . ‟, or a letter, and if
it starts with „.‟ the second character must not
be a digit.
 Length of R names is unlimited.
 R syntax
 Commands are separated either by a semi-colon(;)
or by a newline

 Elementary commands can be grouped together

into one compound expression by braces(„{„ and „}‟)

 Comments can be put almost anywhere with a

hashmark („#‟). Everything to the end of the line is
a comment.
 Variable assignment in R
 A Variable allows you to store a value (e.g.
10)or an object(e.g. a function description) in
R

 You can the later use the variable‟s name to

access the value or object stored within the
variable
 Variable assignment in R
 R assignment operators:
– <-: consists of the „<‟ („less than‟) and „-‟ („minus‟)
characters e.g. x <- 2
– = : The equal to operator e.g. x = 2

 Assignment can also be done using

assign() function e.g. assign(„x‟, 2)
 Variable assignment in R
 Variables are not declared as some data
type in R as it is with other programming
languages(C or Java)

 Variables are assigned with R-object and the

data type of the R-object becomes the data
type of the variable
 Basic R Data Types
 Numeric
– Decimals(e.g. 4.5) and integers(e.g. 4)
– e.g. my_numeric <- 12.5
 Boolean values
– TRUE or FALSE
– e.g. my_logical <- TRUE
 Text(string)
– Characters
– e.g. my_character<- „Thyolo‟
– Characters are closed in single(„‟) or double quotes(“”)
Basic R data types
 To check the data type of a variable you use
the function class()
 e.g. class(my_character)
 R functions

 A function is a set of statemnets organised together

to perform a specific task
 An R function is invoked by its name, then followed
by the parenthesis and zero or more arguments

 Example: function c which combines three numeric

values into a vector
– c(1,2,3)
 Examples of built-in R functions:
– seq(), mean(), max(),print()
 Examples of R built-in
functions
# Create a sequence of numbers from 1 to 1
seq(1:10)

# Find mean of numbers from 1 to 10

mean(1:10

# Find sum of numbers from 1 to 10

sum(1:10)
 R packages

 R packages are a collection of R functions,

compiled code and sample data
 Are stored in under a directory called „library‟ in the
R environment.
 A set of R packages is installed during R installation
 More packages can be installed when needed for
specific purpose
 Other packages which are already installed have to
be loaded before they are used in R
R Packages
 library() # gets the list of all installed packages

 install.packages(“package name”) # install a

package from CRAN webpage
– e.g. install.packages(“raster”) # install the package
named „raster‟

 library(“package name”) # load the package

– e.g. library(raster) # load the package named
„raster‟
Install packages using Packages tab
 Within the Packages tab,
you will see a list of
packages currently
installed on your
computer and two
buttons labeled either
“Install” or “Update”
Load packages using the Packages
tab
 Check the box next to the package name
 R data structures
 Ways how data is represented in R
– Vector – a sequence of data elements of the same basic
type. Members in a vector are called components
– Matrix – a collection of data elements arranged in a 2-D
rectangular layout.
– List – an R-object which can contain many different types of
elements inside it such as vectors, functions or anther list
– Data frame – A list of vectors of equal length used for
storing data tables. Multiple columns and/or rows of data
and multiple types
Vectors
 c() function is used to create vector
objects with elements separated by a comma

 Vector arithmetic:
 Reading data into R
 Large data objects will usually be read as values from external files
rather than entered during
an R session at the keyboard

 There are a number of functions which are used to read data into R
depending on the type of the data file

 CAUTION: data should be in the working directory before it can be

read into R

 Examples:
– To read csv data into R, the read.csv() function is used
– To read shapefiles into R, the st_read() function is used
– To read a single raster file, the raster() function is used
 Reading data into R
 Read gps_points csv file located in the
working directory:

 Result:
Reading data into R
 You can use
the File>Import
Dataset tab to
import text,
excel, spss, sas
or stata
 GIS with R:

Tell the love story

Any questions?