R package for time-series animation of rasters

R package for time-series animation of rasters

m

June 18, 2021

One of remote sensing’s greatest strengths is its capability to deliver consistent and highly resolved time series. These have a wonderful potential for visualizations and analysis.
Creating a fluid and pretty animation from a collection of tifs can be complicated, as it involves a number of steps:

  • Filling gaps in the raster
  • Creating consistent spatial plots
  • Enhancing and decorating the plots
  • Adding ancillary animated charts

Our new R package rtsVis simplifies and assists in all these processing steps. Using just a few functions, you can get from a list of input images to animation-ready ggplots.

rtsVis can create animations of discrete, gradient, and multiband rasters (RGB). It connects nicely to the ImageFusion, moveVis, and rHarmonics packages which offer additional tools for raster time series.

The package allows for the creation of animated charts that go along with the animated rasters. A variety of plot types are available by default and user-made plot types are supported, so you can leverage the full power of ggplot.

For examples, and a guide on how to create custom plot functions, check out the Demo repository.

rtsVis is available on CRAN. The package is in development, with bugs getting fixed and features getting added. Get in touch if you want to contribute!

you may also like:

EORC at the International Africa Festival 2025 in Würzburg

EORC at the International Africa Festival 2025 in Würzburg

If you know Würzburg, you certainly know the International Africa Festival, Europe's largest and oldest festival for African music and culture. For 15 years in a row now, the university tent has been an integral part of the festival. This is where the...

EO4CAM meeting at LfU in Augburg on grassland in Bavaria

EO4CAM meeting at LfU in Augburg on grassland in Bavaria

As part of the EO4CAM project (Earth Observation Laboratory for Climate Adaption and Mitigation), representatives of the Bavarian Environment Agency (LfU), the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), and the Earth Observation Research Cluster (EORC) met at the LfU in...

New R Package Enhances UAS Research and Planning

New R Package Enhances UAS Research and Planning

We’re excited to share the development of a new R package created by our PhD student, Antonio Castaneda Gomez, whose contributions to Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) research continue to impress. Known as the brain behind many of our UAS data collection...

Radio Bavaria BR2 covered our activities at the Africa-Festival

Radio Bavaria BR2 covered our activities at the Africa-Festival

Once again, our team proudly took part in the International Africa Festival in Würzburg, continuing our active participation within the University of Würzburg's exhibition—a tradition we’ve upheld for many years. This year’s event highlighted the ongoing commitment of...

Mapping Paleontology using UAS on cliffs

Mapping Paleontology using UAS on cliffs

We’ve recently started an exciting research project focused on mapping steep rock slopes that contain valuable paleontological information. Unlike most drone surveys that focus on horizontal ground surfaces, our work is aimed vertically—capturing data along exposed...