bioRad 0.5.1.9xxx Unreleased

  • regularize_vpts() is now much faster, and chooses more intuitive starting and ending point of the regularized grid, e.g. projecting on half hour grid will have time series start on the nearest half hour (#332)

  • new option keep_timestamp in regularize_vpts(), which allows individual profiles to keep there original timestamp instead of the timestamp of the regularized grid.

  • improved documentation of sunrise/sunset functions (#180) and new option force_tz 4968019.

  • new option offset in check_night(), which allows day/night transition to be shifted by a temporal offset (#338). For example, this is useful when selecting night time profiles that start a specific number of hours after sunset.

  • selection for day and night in vpts in filter_vpts(), using check_night() (#345)

  • check_night() method for vpi objects 23def64

bioRad 0.5.1 2020-04-01

Minor bugfixes. All issues included in this release can be found here. This release primarily fixes a bug that will become effective once R version 4.0 is released.

  • fixes a conflict due to new raw data format introduced in R version 4.0 (#331)

  • corrects incorrect values in reading of correlation coefficient values RHOHV (#328)

  • bugfix in read_cajun() which introduced incorrect height column during refactoring in bioRad 0.5.0 release (93ad0a4)

  • bugfix that fixes the mapping by map() of composites of composites (ppi’s produced after repeated application of composite_ppi()) (a5c9048, 043aa73)
  • minor bug fixes, and addressing conflicts with CRAN depencies

  • extend the functionality of composite_ppi() and improve its documentation (partial fix of #59)

  • fix a bug in the color legend of map() when providing a custom color scale with palette argument (#324)

  • minor documentation improvements

bioRad 0.5.0 2020-02-19

New CRAN release. All issues included in this release can be found here.

New features

  • integrate_to_ppi() is a new function to estimate spatial images of vertically integrated density and reflectivity. This function produces an ppi image showing the density of animals on the earth’s surface, corrected for the changing overlap between the radar beams and animal layer with distance from the radar. See Kranstauber et al. 2020 for methodology and this vignette for examples.

  • apply_mistnet() is a new function to apply the convolution neural network “MistNet” on pvolfiles to separate biological and meteorological signals (see Lin et al. 2019). Results can be readily visualized with plot.ppi() and plot.scan(). MistNet is now also a segmentation option in calculate_vp() (#262).

  • read_pvolfile() and calculate_vp() now read Vaisala IRIS RAW format directly, helpful for countries like 🇨🇦🇫🇮🇨🇴🇵🇹 (#222). bioRad now also reads files containing single elevation scans and calculate_vp() can calculate profiles from multiple files containing single elevation scans (#221).

Newer/faster conversions

New functions describing the radar beam geometry

  • beam_distance() and beam_range() are new functions to relate range (i.e. slant range), distance (i.e. down range) and height of the radar beam.

  • beam_profile() is a new function to calculate for a set of beam elevations the altitudinal normalized distribution of radiated energy by those beams.

  • beam_profile_overlap() is a new function to calculate the distribution overlap (in terms of Bhattacharyya distance) between a vertical profile (vp) and the vertical radiation profile of a set of emitted radar beams (given by beam_profile()).

Additional features

  • custom color scales in map() and plot.ppi (#318)

  • nyquist_velocity() is a new function to calculate the unambiguous velocity of Doppler radar from its pulse repetition frequency/frequencies (#208).

  • filter_vpts() is a new function simplifying the selection of time ranges and instances in vertical profile time series (vpts) (#241).

  • The definition of height-integrated velocity is now corrected (#232, #233, 72be6d1).

  • Improved documentation of how mtr can be calculated from vid, u, v (6dce625).

  • read_pvolfile() now also reads quantities DBZ, TH, T, because these often occur in European data and are relevant for biological analysis (note that DBZ and T are not ODIM-compliant names) (5db08bd).

  • plot.scan() now has correct ordering of rays (#285).

  • plot.vpts() now has correctly positioned and rounded speed barbs (#277, #244).

  • integrate_profile()’s default unit of interval argument has been changed to seconds (#234).

  • project_as_ppi()’s default projection is now on earth’s surface (#280).

  • height is now the default quantity denoting height above mean sea level. HGHT is deprecated (#273).

  • plot.vpts() and plot.vp() plots are shifted up by half the height interval to reflect that height refers to the bottom of the height interval (#277, #198).

  • calculate_vp()’s default sd_vvp_threshold parameter value at S-band is now 1 m/s (#93).

  • And many small bug fixes and documentation improvements.

bioRad 0.4.0 2018-12-14

First release on CRAN! All issues included in this release can be found here.

bioRad 0.3.0 Unreleased

Release consistent with and in preparation of the bioRad methods paper (https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.04028). All issues included in this release can be found here.

  • Functions (#84), arguments (#112) and objects (#80) have been renamed to be consistent (#51). Deprecated functions will remain functional for now, but we will trigger a warning: we advise to use the new functions names. See the lists for current functions and deprecated functions.

  • integrate_profile() replaces the functionality of cmt() (#75) and mt() (#76).

  • plot() can now be used for scans (#71), e.g. plot(example_scan).

  • Functions are organized in sections on the website (#110).

  • Changelog section (this page) has been added to website (#144).

  • Package R code is reorganized as one function = one file for easier maintenance (#50).

  • First tests are included for some functions.

  • Contributors (#90) and citation (#141) have been updated.

  • bioRad now has a hex logo (#137). ✨