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terra

This R package is a replacement of the raster package. It has a very similar, but simpler, interface, and it is much faster.

All native computations are done in C++. Classes, methods and properties are exposed via a Rcpp module. The R side has two main S4 classes (SpatRaster and SpatVector) that represent spatial data. These classes have only slot, a reference to a C++ object. They are used to provide a "normal" "S4" R user-interface as in the raster package.

The first (alpha) release is expected by July 2019.

Installation

You need to install the latest version of "raster" from CRAN or github.

Windows

If you are on Windows, you need to first install Rtools to get a C++ compiler that R can use. After that, you need the first install development version of "raster" for "terra" to work.

Then, in R, install the packages.

library(devtools)
install.packages("raster")
#devtools::install_github("rspatial/raster")
devtools::install_github("rspatial/terra")

Mac - OSX

The libraries GDAL (>= 2.0.0), GEOS (>= 3.3.0) and Proj.4 (>= 4.8.0) are required (as for sf)

With Homebrew you can do:

brew install gdal

And now, in R, install the packages.

library(devtools)
install.packages("raster")
devtools::install_github("rspatial/terra")

Linux

The libraries GDAL (>= 2.0.0), GEOS (>= 3.3.0) and Proj.4 (>= 4.8.0) are required (as for sf)

To install these on Ubuntu you can do:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntugis/ubuntugis-unstable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libgdal-dev libgeos-dev libproj-dev 

And now, in R, install the packages.

library(devtools)
install.packages("raster")
devtools::install_github("rspatial/terra")

See the sf instructions for installation on other linux systems.

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Version

Install

install.packages('terra')

Monthly Downloads

179,039

Version

0.3-7

License

GPL (>=3)

Issues

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Stars

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Maintainer

Robert Hijmans

Last Published

June 1st, 2025

Functions in terra (0.3-7)

buffer

Create a buffer around vector objects or raster patches
compareGeom

Compare geometries of SpatRaster objects
collapse

Collapse cell values from a multi-layer SpatRaster
area

Area and perimeter
app

Apply a function to the cells of a SpatRaster
SpatExtent-class

Class "SpatExtent"
crop

Cut out a geographic subset
dimensions

Dimensions of a SpatRaster or SpatVector
geom

Get the geometry (coordinates) of a SpatVector
crs

Get or set a coordinate reference system (projection)
focal

Focal values
as.data.frame

Get the attributes of a SpatVector
atan2

Two argument arc-tangent
geomtype

Geometry type of a SpatVector
freq

Frequency table
adjacent

Adjacent cells
SpatDataFrame-class

C++ classes
SpatRaster-class

SpatRaster class
classify

Classify (or reclassify) cell values
draw

Draw a polygon, line, extent, or points
factors

Factors
extend

Extend
hist

Histogram
mask

Mask values in a SpatRaster
global

global statistics
disaggregate

Disaggregate raster cells
flip

Flip a raster
shift

Shift
select

Geometric subsetting
math

Mathematical operations with SpatRaster objects
predict

Spatial model predictions
plotRGB

Red-Green-Blue plot of a multi-layered SpatRaster
tapp

Apply a function to subsets of layers of a SpatRaster
initialize

Initialize a SpatRaster with values
interpolate

Interpolate
head and tail

Show the head or tail of a Spat* object
ifel

ifelse for SpatRaster objects
overlay

Overlay SpatRaster objects
clamp

Clamp values
cover

Cover (replace) NA values with values of another raster
c

Combine
contour

Contour plot
terra-package

The "terra" package
isLonLat

Check for longitude/latitude crs
xmin

Get or set single values of an extent
modal

modal value
local

Local statistics
persp

Perspective plot
plot

Plot a SpatRaster or SpatVector
read and write

Read from, or write to, file
xyRowColCell

Coordinates from a row, column or cell number and vice versa
tmpFiles

Temporary files
transpose

Transpose
vector-attributes

Get or replace attribute values of a SpatVector
rast

Create a SpatRaster
SpatOptions-class

Inspect of set general options for "terra"
rasterize

Rasterize vector data
warp

Transfer values of a SpatRaster to another one with a different geometry
text

Add labels to a map
pairs

Pairs plot (matrix of scatterplots)
project

Change the coordinate reference system
quantile

SpatRaster local quantiles
writeRaster

Write raster data to a file
names

Names of Spat objects
rotate

Rotate a SpatRaster along longitude
subset-vector

Subset of a SpatVector
zonal

Zonal statistics
zoom

Zoom in on a map
sampleRegular

Take a regular sample
subset

Subset of a SpatRaster
trim

Trim a SpatRaster
distance

Geographic distance
unique

Unique values
values

Get cell values
extract

Extract values from a SpatRaster
merge

Merge SpatRaster or SpatExtent objects, or a SpatVector with a data.frame
extent

Create, get or set a SpatExtent
vect

Create SpatVector objects
slope

Compute slopes
range

Get or compute the minimum and maximum cell values
sources

Data sources of a SpatRaster
click

Query by clicking on a map
coerce

Coercion to other object types
SpatVector-class

Class "SpatVector"
aggregate

Aggregate raster cells
align

Align a SpatExtent with a SpatRaster
boundaries

Detect boundaries (edges)
density

Density plot