A pairwise interaction point process in a bounded region
  is a stochastic point process with probability density of the form
  $$
    f(x_1,\ldots,x_n) =
    \alpha \prod_i b(x_i) \prod_{i < j} h(x_i, x_j)
  $$
  where \(x_1,\ldots,x_n\) represent the 
  points of the pattern. The first product on the right hand side is
  over all points of the pattern; the second product is over all
  unordered pairs of points of the pattern.
Thus each point \(x_i\) of the pattern contributes a factor 
  \(b(x_i)\) to the probability density, and each pair of
  points \(x_i, x_j\) contributes a factor
  \(h(x_i,x_j)\) to the density.
The pairwise interaction term \(h(u, v)\) is called
  piecewise constant
  if it depends only on the distance between \(u\) and \(v\),
  say \(h(u,v) = H(||u-v||)\), and \(H\) is a piecewise constant
  function (a function which is constant except for jumps at a finite
  number of places). The use of piecewise constant interaction terms
  was first suggested by Takacs (1986).
 
The function ppm(), which fits point process models to 
  point pattern data, requires an argument 
  of class "interact" describing the interpoint interaction
  structure of the model to be fitted. 
  The appropriate description of the piecewise constant pairwise
  interaction is yielded by the function PairPiece().
  See the examples below.
The entries of r must be strictly increasing, positive numbers.
  They are interpreted as the points of discontinuity of \(H\).
  It is assumed that \(H(s) =1\) for all \(s > r_{max}\)
  where \(r_{max}\) is the maximum value in r. Thus the
  model has as many regular parameters (see ppm) 
  as there are entries in r. The \(i\)-th regular parameter
  \(\theta_i\) is the logarithm of the value of the
  interaction function \(H\) on the interval
  \([r_{i-1},r_i)\).
If r is a single number, this model is similar to the 
  Strauss process, see Strauss. The difference is that
  in PairPiece the interaction function is continuous on the
  right, while in Strauss it is continuous on the left.
The analogue of this model for multitype point processes
  has not yet been implemented.