NEWS

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rgplates 2025-09-10

- "In GAD we trust - still"

Added

• The crs argument of mapedge to project the created map edge immediately after creating it.
• The anchor parameter is now available for the offline module of reconstruct().

Fixed

• Documentation of missing GWS models in the help of reconstruct().
• Suppressed OGR warning messages of the offline reconstruct() on Windows that are output by sf::st_read() because of GPlates output

rgplates 2025-04-26

- "Hosh-posh volcanism"

Added

• Support for topological boundaries for the GPlates Web Service. The feature collections "subduction_zones", "plate_boundaries" are now available for access, these sf objects also gained the subduction.zones and plate.boundaries S3 classes for efficient plotting.
• The feature collections "static_polygons", "coastlines", "plate_polygons" now return S3 classes static.polygons, coastlines, plate.polygons besides the standard sf classes
• The sawteeth function as the engine for visualizing subduction lines.
• Plot method for the subduction.zones S3 class (plot.subduction.zones)
• Support for .gpmlz feature collection files.
• Support for multiple rotation files per tectonic model. The rotation files will be concatenated at recontruction time.
• Support for shapefile model feature collections.
• platemodel constructor enforces the presence of linked files.

Changed

• The gws data.frame object is updated to work with GWS 1.0.0.

Fixed

• In the offline reconstruct method, if the partitioning feature collection is not present, the function will indicate it with a correct error message.

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rgplates 2024-09-04

- "Spread That Seafloor"

Added

• Support for the reconstruction of SpatRaster class objects (package terra). The terra extension is now added as a suggested package.
• The velocities() function to calculate plate tectonic velocities from the GWS. Currently only the online method is supported. The interface is similar to reconstruct(), the character-method e.g. velocities("static_polygons") returns velocities on a given feature set.

Changed

• Updated the gws object to version v1.1

Known issues

• Velocities on topological plates are not yet available.

Missing

• Vectorization for multiple ages in velocities()

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rgplates 2024-08-21

Interim release (not archived/published on the CRAN).

Fixed

• Bug with the offline method: GPlates 2.5.0 under Windows could not be reached because the default path resolved in the gplates.exe.local file.

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rgplates 2024-08-19

- "The Plates Be Driftin'"

Added

• The checkgws(), getgws() and setgws() functions that allow the customization of the remote location of the GPlates Web Service.

Changed

• Docs updated to reflect repo transfer to https://github.com/gplates

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rgplates 2024-02-02

- "Wondering Continents"

Added

• 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.

Changed

• 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.

Fixed

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

Deleted

• The 'chunk' argument of reconstruct() was deprecacted and is scheduled for omission.

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rgplates 2023-09-06

Fixed

• Bug fix for windows paths in the offline reconstruction methods

rgplates 2023-08-09

Added

• 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()

Fixed

• 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.

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rgplates 2023-06-29

Added

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

Changed

• 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"

Removed

• unnecessary imports from utils

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rgplates 2023-03-08

Added

• the mapedge() function
• function website assets

Changed

• example data switched to PaleoMAP v3

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rgplates 2022-09-19

Added

• Package now depends on the sustainable 'sf'-based interface to GPLates
• Defense against non-integer reconstruction dates for the online method.
• Support for 'sf' type objects for the online reconstruction method
• defense against decimal ages for online reconstruction method.
• Support for all 'Spatial*' objects (sp) in the offline reconstruction method
• The 'gmeta' argument of the local reconstruction submodule and sf output.

Changed

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

Removed

• dependency of deprecated 'rgdal' extension
• Support for polygons for the online reconstruction method.

Known issues

• Matrix-based reconstructinos do not accept missing values.

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rgplates 2021-05-11

Changed

• Bug fix for spaces in usernames on Windows machines.

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rgplates 2021-05-09

Added

• material copied over from chronosphere 0.4.1
• reconstruct(model=NULL) argumentation.

Changed

• platemodel data example is manually extracted
• reconstruct example replaced with model=NULL