dotsInPolys: Put dots in polygons

Description

Make point coordinates for a dot density map

Usage

dotsInPolys(pl, x, f = "random", offset, compatible = FALSE)

Arguments

an object of class SpatialPolygons or SpatialPolygonsDataFrame

integer vector of counts of same length as pl for dots

type of sampling used to place points in polygons, either "random" or "regular"

offset

for regular sampling only: the offset (position) of the regular grid; if not set, c(0.5,0.5), that is the returned grid is not random

compatible

what to return, if TRUE a a list of matrices of point coordinates, one matrix for each member of pl, if false a SpatialPointsDataFrame with polygon ID values

Value

If compatible=TRUE, the function returns a list of matrices of point coordinates, one matrix for each member of pl. If x[i] is zero, the list element is NULL, and can be tested when plotting - see the examples. If compatible=FALSE (default), it returns a SpatialPointsDataFrame with polygon ID values as the only column in the data slot.

Details

With f="random", the dots are placed in the polygon at random, f="regular" - in a grid pattern (number of dots not guaranteed to be the same as the count). When the polygon is made up of more than one part, the dots will be placed in proportion to the relative areas of the clockwise rings (anticlockwise are taken as holes). From maptools release 0.5-2, correction is made for holes in the placing of the dots, but depends on hole values being correctly set, which they often are not.

Examples

Run this code

# NOT RUN {
nc_SP <- readShapePoly(system.file("shapes/sids.shp", package="maptools")[1],
 proj4string=CRS("+proj=longlat  +ellps=clrk66"))
# }
# NOT RUN {
pls <- slot(nc_SP, "polygons")
pls_new <- lapply(pls, checkPolygonsHoles)
nc_SP <- SpatialPolygonsDataFrame(SpatialPolygons(pls_new,
 proj4string=CRS(proj4string(nc_SP))), data=as(nc_SP, "data.frame"))
# }
# NOT RUN {
try1 <- dotsInPolys(nc_SP, as.integer(nc_SP$SID74))
plot(nc_SP, axes=TRUE)
plot(try1, add=TRUE, pch=18, col="red")
try2 <- dotsInPolys(nc_SP, as.integer(nc_SP$SID74), f="regular")
plot(nc_SP, axes=TRUE)
plot(try2, add=TRUE, pch=18, col="red")
# }