--- title: "Getting started with a5R" output: rmarkdown::html_vignette vignette: > %\VignetteIndexEntry{Getting started with a5R} %\VignetteEngine{knitr::rmarkdown} %\VignetteEncoding{UTF-8} --- ```{r, include = FALSE} knitr::opts_chunk$set( collapse = TRUE, comment = "#>" ) ``` ```{r setup} library(a5R) ``` ## Index a point Map a longitude/latitude coordinate to a cell at a given resolution (0--30). Higher resolutions produce smaller cells. ```{r} cell <- a5_lonlat_to_cell(-3.19, 55.95, resolution = 10) cell ``` Convert back to the cell centre point: ```{r} a5_cell_to_lonlat(cell) ``` ## Cell boundaries Get the boundary polygon for one or more cells: ```{r boundary-plot, fig.width = 5, fig.height = 4} boundary <- a5_cell_to_boundary(cell) boundary plot(boundary, col = "#206ead20", border = "#206ead", asp = 1) ``` Boundaries are returned as `wk_wkb` vectors by default (set `format = "wkt"` for WKT). Both integrate directly with sf, terra, and other spatial tooling via the wk package. ## Hierarchy and compaction A5 is a hierarchical grid: every cell has a **parent** at a coarser resolution and 4 **children** at the next finer resolution. ```{r} parent <- a5_cell_to_parent(cell) parent children <- a5_cell_to_children(cell) children ``` We can visualise the relationship - the parent (dark outline) contains our cell (blue fill), which in turn contains its 4 children (orange): ```{r hierarchy-plot, fig.width = 8, fig.height = 8} plot(NULL, xlim = c(-3.23, -3), ylim = c(55.98, 55.99), xlab = "", ylab = "", asp = 1 ) plot(a5_cell_to_boundary(a5_cell_to_children(cell)), col = "#ad6e2020", border = "#ad6e20", add = TRUE) plot(a5_cell_to_boundary(cell), col = "#206ead40", border = "#206ead", lwd = 2, add = TRUE) plot(a5_cell_to_boundary(parent), border = "#333333", lwd = 2, add = TRUE) ``` Cell area decreases geometrically --- each level is roughly 4x smaller: ```{r} a5_cell_area(0:5) ``` ### Compact and uncompact When a complete set of siblings is present, `a5_compact()` merges them back into their shared parent. This is the inverse of `a5_cell_to_children()` and is useful for reducing the size of large cell sets without losing coverage. ```{r} children a5_compact(children) # round-trips back to the original a5_uncompact(a5_compact(children), resolution = 11) ``` Many a5R functions return compacted output automatically. For example, `a5_grid_disk()` and `a5_spherical_cap()` compact their results --- use `a5_uncompact()` when you need a uniform-resolution grid (see [Traversal](#traversal) below). ## Traversal Find neighbouring cells by hop count with `a5_grid_disk()`, or by great-circle distance with `a5_spherical_cap()`: ```{r traversal, fig.width = 7} disk <- a5_grid_disk(cell, k = 10) cap <- a5_spherical_cap(cell, radius = 50000) plot(a5_cell_to_boundary(cap), col = "#6ead2020", border = "#6ead20", asp = 1) plot(a5_cell_to_boundary(disk), col = "#206ead20", border = "#206ead", asp = 1) ``` Both functions return a **compacted** cell vector --- sibling groups are merged into coarser parent cells to save space. To recover a uniform grid at the original resolution, pass the result through `a5_uncompact()`: ```{r traversal-uncompact, fig.width = 7} disk_grid <- a5_uncompact(disk, resolution = a5_get_resolution(cell)) plot(a5_cell_to_boundary(disk_grid), col = "#206ead20", border = "#206ead", asp = 1) ``` ## Grid generation `a5_grid()` is a convenience function provided by a5R (not part of the underlying a5 Rust crate) that returns all cells at a target resolution covering a given area --- handy for binning, zonal statistics, and other spatial analysis workflows common in R. Pass a bounding box as a numeric vector: ```{r grid-plot, fig.width = 7} cells <- a5_grid(c(-3.3, 55.9, -3.1, 56.0), resolution = 12) length(cells) plot(a5_cell_to_boundary(cells), col = "#206ead20", border = "#206ead", asp = 1) ``` Any geometry that wk can handle works too --- polygons, sf objects, or even `a5_cell` vectors: ```{r} library(sf) demo(nc, ask = FALSE, echo = FALSE) nca5 <- a5_grid(nc, resolution = 9) plot(a5_cell_to_boundary(nca5), col = "#6d20ad20", border = "#6d20adff", asp = 1) ```