A *.nts file containing two- or
three-dimensional landmark data
Value
Function returns a (p x k x n) array, where p is the
number of landmark points, k is the number of landmark
dimensions (2 or 3), and n is the number of specimens.
The third dimension of this array contains names for each
specimen, which are obtained from the image names in the
*.nts file.
Details
This function reads a *.nts file containing a matrix of
two- or three-dimensional landmark coordinates. NTS
files are text files in one of the standard formats for
geometric morphometrics (see Rohlf 2012). The parameter
line contains 5 or 6 elements, and must begin with a "1"
to designate a rectangular matrix. The second and third
values designate how many specimens (n) and how many
total variables (p x k) are in the data matrix. The
fourth value is a "0" if the data matrix is complete and
a "1" if there are missing values. If missing values are
present, the '1' is followed by the arbitrary numeric
code used to represent missing values (e.g., -999). These
values will be replaced with "-999" in the output array.
The final value of the parameter line denotes the
dimensionality of the landmarks (2,3) and begins with
"DIM=". If specimen and variable labels are included,
these are designated placing an "L" immediately following
the specimen or variable values in the parameter file.
The labels then precede the data matrix.
References
Rohlf, F. J. 2012 NTSYSpc: Numerical taxonomy and
multivariate analysis system. Version 2.2. Exeter
Software, New York.