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bcmaps (development version)

  • In the cded_() functions, the ask argument, which controls if if the user is consulted to store data in the cache, was ignored. It is now respected (#147).

bcmaps 2.2.0

CRAN release: 2024-01-24

  • Added function utm_convert() to convert tabular data with X and Y coordinates in (possibly multiple) UTM zones to a single CRS.

bcmaps 2.1.0

CRAN release: 2023-10-17

bcmaps 2.0.0

CRAN release: 2023-08-23

Removal of sp and raster support

We’ve removed support for the sp and raster packages, especially those parts that require the use of the rgdal and rgeos packages, which will be retired in October 2023. See the r-spatial blog for details of this evolution.

Documentation improvements

bcmaps 1.2.0

CRAN release: 2023-04-11

Deprecation of sp and raster support

We’ve started the process of removing support for the sp and raster packages, especially those parts of that require the use of the rgdal and rgeos packages, which will be retired in October 2023. See the r-spatial blog for details of this evolution. We will fully remove support for Spatial classes (from package sp) in the next release in Summer 2023.

  • Added deprecation warnings for the class argument in all of the data download functions: get_layer() and all of the wrapper shortcuts such as bc_bound(), census_tract(), etc. This argument will be removed in the next version of bcmaps as these functions will only return sf objects.
  • The Spatial method of transform_bc_albers() is deprecated.
  • fix_geo_problems() is deprecated and will be removed completely in Summer 2023. For sf objects simply use sf::st_make_valid()
  • self_union() is deprecated and will be removed in Summer 2023. Use raster::union() for SpatialPolygonsDataFrames, or sf::st_union() with sf objects instead.
  • get_poly_attribute() is deprecated because it had a very niche application for calculating attributes on a SpatialPolygonsDataFrame, which we are removing support for. It will be removed completely in Summer 2023.

bcmaps 1.1.0

CRAN release: 2023-01-06

  • bec and tsa layers are now downloaded directly from the BC Data Catalogue. This ensures that these are up-to-date and means that we do not rely on the manual updating of these layers at https://github.com/bcgov/bcmapsdata. (#62, #115)
  • Package startup message about no longer needing the bcmapsdata package has been removed.

bcmaps 1.0.3

CRAN release: 2022-08-26

  • New behaviour of shortcut functions ensures that all spatial objects (sf or Spatial) returned are topologically valid and in the standard CRS of “EPSG:3005” (BC Albers). #96
  • More robust behaviour of getting and checking cache of cded files.

bcmaps 1.0.2

CRAN release: 2021-03-09

  • New helper function show_cached_files() to show the files that you have cached (and how much space they’re taking up on your computer). (#92, #93)

bcmaps 1.0.1

CRAN release: 2021-01-19

  • When R version is >= 4.0, bcmaps will use tools::R_user_dir("bcmaps", "cache") to determine the cache directory, while when R version is < 4.0, it will use rappdirs::user_cache_dir("bcmaps"). This is to align with CRAN’s storage policy using the tools approach while maintaining backwards compatibility with older R versions. Unfortunately this will require users who updated to version 1.0 to re-download layers because we are caching layers in a different location on your file system from that version. Users wishing to clear the old cache location could run bcmaps::delete_cache() before updating to bcmaps 1.0.1. (#83)
  • cded_raster and cded_stars directly accepts a bounding box generated by sf::st_bbox as an aoi. (#87)
  • Fixed a bug where bundled datasets (e.g., mapsheets_50K(), mapsheets_250K()) would not work if sf was linked to older GDAL/PROJ libraries due to different formats of coordinate reference systems. (#85)
  • Added new census boundary layers: census_dissemination_area(), census_metropolitan_area(), census_tract() (#82).
  • Add missing layers to available_layers

bcmaps 1.0

  • Drop dependency on {bcmapsdata} in favour of directly retrieving layers (where present) from the B.C. Data Catalogue (via {bcdata}) and storing in a local cache. Some additional layers are retrieved from Statistics Canada.
  • Some layers may not be identical to what was previously in {bcmaps}. For example bc_neighbours previously used data from Natural Earth. The availability of a Hi-Res B.C. boundaries over WFS from the B.C. Data Catalogue means that the layer can now be created directly by {bcmaps}.
  • Added forward sortation area (fsa), health boundaries (health_*) and some census boundaries (census_*).
  • Added ability to retrieve and cache CDED (BC Digital Elevation Model data, returning either stars or raster objects (#73)
  • Use of parallelism in functions that allow it (raster_by_poly() & summarize_raster_list()) is now reliant on users setting up their own future::plan() to specify strategy and number of workers, rather than setting defaults (this is the best practice according to the author of the future package @HenrikBengtsson, #69)
  • Fixed bug where errors would occur if a user’s system GEOS was a development version (e.g., 3.9.0dev; #71)

bcmaps 0.18.1

CRAN release: 2020-04-29

bcmaps 0.18.0

CRAN release: 2019-02-15

bcmaps v0.17.1

CRAN release: 2018-03-14

  • Fixed an issue where self_union() would fail due to a change in the raster package (30cef3438)

bcmaps 0.17.0

CRAN release: 2018-01-18

  • Output of available_layers() has changed: shortcut_function column is now logical, uses better column names, and has a custom print function that gives more information. (#34)
  • Add links to combine_nr_rd() function from regional_districts() and municipalities(). This function combines Regional Districts with the Northern Rockies Regional Municipalities to create a full provincial layer of ‘Regional-District-like’ polygons.
  • Added Timber Supply Areas and BC cities shortcut function and to available_layers()
  • bec (and other large downloadable layers) show up in the output of available_layers(), bec() works, and get_layer("bec") works so that getting downloadable datasets is indistinguishable from getting local datasets. (#32)
  • Some utility functions use sf functions that have been moved to the lwgeom package. They now use the lwgeom function (Fixes CRAN CHECK NOTE; #33).
  • Added new layer: bc_cities() which is a point layer of B.C.’s major cities.

bcmaps 0.16.0

CRAN release: 2017-12-20

  • First release to CRAN
  • Added two new functions: raster_by_poly to overlay a SpatialPolygonsDataFrmae or sf polygons layer on a raster layer and clip the raster to each polygon, and summarize_raster_list to summarize the results of raster_to_poly

bcmaps 0.15.1

  • get_layer() now only accepts characters (#31)
  • Fixes bug in check_write_to_data_dir where it was not creating data directory
  • Update README installation instructions so that vignettes aren’t built before bcmaps.rdata is installed (#29)

bcmaps 0.15.0

  • Added the ability to download Biogeoclimatic Zone map - as it was too big to fit in the bcmaps.rdata package, it is hosted as an asset on a GitHub release of bcmaps.rdata, and downloaded via the function bec(), which uses the new function get_big_data() (#28).
  • Added function bec_colours() (and alias bec_colors()) to generate a vector of colours that match the standard colours used to colour Biogeoclimatic Zone maps.

bcmaps 0.14.0

  • Changed the lookup for exported objected to getNamespaceExports("bcmaps") so that you can call layers without loading the package via bcmaps::
  • Removed watersheds layer from package
  • Added ecosections to package

bcmaps 0.13.0

This is a major new release with breaking changes.

All data has been removed from the bcmaps package and moved to the bcmaps.rdata package, which is hosted on the bcgov drat repository: https://github.com/bcgov/drat. That package must be installed in order for bcmaps to access the data. It can be installed with: install.packages('bcmaps.rdata', repos='https://bcgov.github.io/drat/')

In previous versions of bcmaps, data was stored in the package and loaded by calling data("layername") or simply layername (e.g., data("bc_bound") or bc_bound).

Now loading data requires a function call - either using a shortcut function that is the same name as the dataset (e.g., bc_bound() whereas previously one would simply use bc_bound). Alternatively, one can use the get_layer() function (e.g., get_layer("bc_bound")).

Another major change is that all the layers are now returned as sf classes by default, rather than Spatial classes. Spatial versions of the data can still be obtained by setting the class argument to "sp" in get_layer() and the shortcut functions (E.g., bc_bound(class = "sp") or get_layer("bc_bound", class = "sp")).

bcmaps 0.12.0

  • Added wsc_drainages

bcmaps 0.11.0

  • Added hydrozones dataset.

bcmaps 0.10.1

  • Fixed ring self-intersections in bc_bound_hres and airzones (#13)

bcmaps 0.10.0

  • Added water_districts and water_precincts datasets.

bcmaps 0.9.0

  • Added gw_aquifers dataset.

bcmaps 0.8.2

  • Added a tries argument to fix_geo_problems function to set the maximum number of iterations it should go through in attempting to repair topological issues.

bcmaps 0.8.1

  • Set character encoding of watercourses_15M and watercourses_5M datasets to UTF-8.

bcmaps 0.8.0

  • Added watercourses_15M and watercourses_5M datasets.

bcmaps 0.7.1

  • fix_geo_problems and transform_bc_albers are Generic functions with methods for sf objects as well as Spatial objects
  • fix_self_intersect is now defunct

bcmaps 0.6.2

  • fix_self_intersect has been renamed to fix_geo_problems (but kept as an alias for now)
  • fix_geo_problems can often also fix orphaned holes in addition to self-intersections.

bcmaps 0.6.0

  • Added watersheds dataset (#15, @markjohnsonubc)
  • Added a NEWS.md file to track changes to the package.

bcmaps 0.5.0

Added two new functions to create and work with SpatailPolygonsDataFrames with nested data frames:

  • self_union performs a union on a single SpatialPolygons* object to take into account overlaps. Polygon attributes are combined in a nested dataframe.
  • get_poly_attribute allows you to easily parse a nested data frame column (created by self_union) to extract or calculate the attributes you want

bcmaps 0.4.0

Added a couple of convenience functions:

  • transform_bc_albers() transforms a Spatial object to BC Albers projection
  • fix_self_intersect() checks for and repairs self-intersecting polygons

bcmaps 0.3.0

Added 3 Natural Resource layers (areas, regions and districts)

bcmaps 0.2.0

Added high resolution BC boundaries (bc_bound_hres)

bcmaps 0.1.0

Added bc_area function