Mapping fun with R

Buffer Overflow
1

Have started to learn R to complete a mapping project that I am working on.

IDE; R Studio with ggmap, rgdal, rgeos, maptools, dplyr, tdyr and tmap

Downloaded http://data.gov.uk/dataset/boundary-line but no .shp files are listed just .lyr and qml. How do I use these?

Have tried the readOGR function but it returns an error message ’ Error in ogrInfo(dsn = dsn, layer = layer, encoding = encoding, use_iconv = use_iconv, : Cannot open file ’

county <- readOGR(dsn = “shapes”, layer = “parish_region”) ### my code

2

Thanks for posting your question here Thomas.

First off: R is not specifically intended for mapping applications, and while it can do a great job of visualising data in space, there may be tools that are easier to use for beginners. With that in mind, check out the recently updated Introduction to visualising spatial data in R.

To your question on formats, if rgdal doesn’t read your file then you will have to convert it. As the tutorial recommends, you should download QGIS, and export to a shapefile first.

3

Was hoping it was just something I overlooked in the tools already within R or one of its packages, going to install QGIS now.

What tools would you recommend to begin mapping (ideally with the the ability to add summaries for objects)?

Thanks for the tutorial you posted earlier, really enjoyed it.

4

Hi @Thomas check out https://www.mapbox.com and http://leafletjs.com/ for a start with web mapping. In R, you might also try OpenStreetMap support.