Change log of the R package ‘rgplates’

rgplates 0.4.0 - 2024-02-02

“Wondering Continents”

New suggested package ‘httr2’ to be used with the online method (see changed), which allows the customized usage of HTTP requests.
The from argument for reconstruct(), providing explicit support for forward reconstruction. The argumentation from!=0, age=0 (default), calculates present-day coordinates of past coordinates. The argumentation from!=0, age!=0 calculates shifted positions of coordinates at different times (age) than their original (from).
Support for missing values (NA) for the point reconstructions, which no longer trigger an error, but are rather propagated through the pipeline as missing values.
The warn argument of reconstruct(), allowing users to switch off warnings that indicate that paleocoordinates are off the partitioning polygons.
The anchor argument of reconstruct(), allowing users to change the anchor plate for the online submodule. This is necessary for toggling the paleomagnetic reference frame of the "TorsvikCocks2017" model in the GWS.
The former plateperiod (now: validtime) argument is usable with the GPlates Web Service and the online reconstruction method.

Online reconstruction method (with GWS) now uses the HTTP POST method for points and sends coordinates as form data. Internals were changed accordingly. This allows the processing of theoretically unlimited number of coordinates.
Online reconstruction method (with GWS) is no longer bound to integer ages.
Point reconstruction results (matrix and data.frame objects) now consistently have the column names paleolong and paleolat for past coordinates, and long and lat for present-day coordinates.
The plateperiod argument was renamed to validtime for better semantic compatibility with the GPlates Web Service.

Online reconstruction was not working when the package was not attached due to issue of the checking of the valid input.

The ‘chunk’ argument of reconstruct() was deprecacted and is scheduled for omission.

The gws data object that includes details about the reconstructable features in the GPlates Web services
Routines to check user entry to the GPlates Web Service with the gws Object.
The platemodel class now accepts feature descriptions as a data.frame. This allows the inclusion of valid age ranges for the reconstruction of feature collections.
Simon Williams as contributor, as his code was the basis for accessing the GWS
import of utils::data()

Minor bug that did not allow topological features to be reconstructed.
Minor bug that occurred when enumerate=FALSE and cases when the target age included NAs
An error that occurred when plateperiod=TRUE, the target age went beyond the duration of the plates and no coordinates were returned by the GPlates Desktop Application.

The platemodel class now accepts multiple feature collections. These can be recontructed by setting the x argument of recontruct().

The interface of the reconstruct() function now matches that of the GPlates web service. Use "static_polygons" instead of "plates".
The plateperiod argument of reconstruct() now defaults to TRUE
Documentation to reflect models avialble through the GPlates web service
Changed default method of online reconstruction to "MERDITH2021"

All spatial outputs now default to sf instead of Spatial* types
online reconstruction method now suggests the ‘geojsonsf’ extension package for reading in features