mudata (version 0.1.1)

mudata-package: A (Mostly) Universal Data Format for Multi-Parameter, Spatiotemporal Data

Description

The 'mudata' package for R is a set of tools to create, manipulate, and visualize multi-parameter, spatiotemporal data. Data of this type includes all data where multiple parameters (e.g. wind speed, precipitation, temperature) are measured along a common axis (e.g. time, depth) at discrete locations (e.g. climate stations). These data include long-term climate data collected from climate stations, paleolimnological data, ice core data, and ocean core data among many others. Data of this type is often voluminous and difficult to organize given its multi-dimensional nature. The (mostly) universal data (mudata) format is an attempt to organize these data in a common way to facilitate their documentation and comparison.

Details

The (mostly) universal data format is a collection of five (or more) tables, one of which contains the data in a molten form (see reshape2::melt). The easiest way to visualize a mudata object is to inspect the kentvillegreenwood dataset within the package. This object is a collection of daily observations from Kentville, Nova Scotia, and Greenwood, Nova Scotia from July and August, 1999.

See Also

mudata

Examples

# NOT RUN {
# inspect the example dataset
data(kentvillegreenwood)
plot(kentvillegreenwood)

# create a mudata object from a wide data.frame
library(reshape2)
data("pocmajsum")
pocmajwide <- pocmajsum[c("core", "depth", "Ca", "V", "Ti")]
pocmajwide <- rename.cols(pocmajwide, "core"="location", "depth"="x")
pocmajlong <- melt(pocmajwide, id.vars=c("location", "x"), variable.name = "param",
                   value.name="value")
md <- mudata(pocmajlong)
plot(md, yvar="x")

# }