Skip to content

Issues with unionSpatialPolygons on Ubuntu

3 messages · Michael Rutter, Kenneth Takagi

Original
Kenneth Takagi
# 
Hi,

I've cross posted with r-sig-debian since they may be an issue for 
linux (never had this problem on my windows machine...)
I recently made the switch to Ubuntu 10.04 (lucid), and found that 
unionSpatialPolygons() gives me the following error when trying to 
combine polygons within a shapefile:

# Read in shapefile and merge polygons
foo <- readShapePoly("foo.shp", proj4string = CRS("+init=epsg:2272"))
IDs <- as.character(foo$ID)
SP_out <- unionSpatialPolygons(foo, IDs)
Error: isTRUE(gpclibPermitStatus()) is not TRUE

I've seen some posts about a package "rgeos" which may have something 
to do with this error, and I downloaded the source from:
http://r-forge.r-project.org/R/?group_id=602

But when I've tried to install by source using R CMD INSTALL (or using 
install.packages()) I get the following error message:

...lines of output not shown...
rgeos_misc.c: In function ?rgeos_hausdorffdistance?:
rgeos_misc.c:62: error: ?GEOSHausdorffDistance_r? undeclared (first use 
in this function)
rgeos_misc.c:62: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
rgeos_misc.c:62: error: for each function it appears in.)
make: *** [rgeos_misc.o] Error 1
ERROR: compilation failed for package ?rgeos?

I'm using R version 2.11.1 (2010-05-31), in ubuntu 10.04 LTS

Thanks for any help you can offer on getting unionSpatialPolygon up and 
running!

Ken
1 day later
Michael Rutter
#
On 06/05/2010 07:28 PM, Kenneth Takagi wrote:
Ken,

Without a "foo.shp" file to use as an example, I can't recreate your 
original R error.  Can you redo the example given on page 57 of the 
maptools pdf manual?

However, I can recreate the error when trying to install rgeos.  That 
error needs to be addressed with the rgeos developers, as it appears 
that is an error in their code, not something that is missing in R or in 
Ubuntu.

Hope this helps,
Michael
Kenneth Takagi
# 
Michael,

I figured out the issue with unionSpatialPolygons() (I posted this on 
R-sig-Geo as well):

Turns out that that I didn't have package "gpclib" installed.  Once 
installed, I could run the gpclibPermit() function, which set 
gpclibPermitStatus() = T:

 > library(maptools)
Loading required package: foreign
Loading required package: sp
Loading required package: lattice

     Note: polygon geometry computations in maptools
      depend on the package gpclib, which has a
      restricted licence. It is disabled by default;
      to enable gpclib, type gpclibPermit()

Checking rgeos availability as gpclib substitute:
FALSE

 > gpclibPermit()  # downloaded package "gpclib" to run this function
General Polygon Clipper Library for R (version 1.5-1)
     Type 'class ? gpc.poly' for help

[1] TRUE

Then unionSpatialPolygons() works fine.  As for the issue with 
installing package "rgeos", I'm not sure of the issue, but I posted on 
r-sig-geo the error, so hopefully they are aware of it now.

Ken
On 06/06/2010 07:55 PM, Michael Rutter wrote: