ddbs_as_points: Generate point geometries from coordinates

In duckspatial: R Interface to 'DuckDB' Database with Spatial Extension

Generate point geometries from coordinates

Description

Converts a data frame with coordinate columns into spatial point geometries.

Usage

ddbs_as_points(
  x,
  coords = c("lon", "lat"),
  crs = "EPSG:4326",
  remove = TRUE,
  na.fail = TRUE,
  conn = NULL,
  name = NULL,
  mode = NULL,
  overwrite = FALSE,
  quiet = FALSE,
  ...
)

Arguments

x	Input spatial data. Can be: A duckspatial_df object (lazy spatial data frame via dbplyr) An sf object A tbl_lazy from dbplyr A character string naming a table/view in conn Data is returned from this object.
coords	Character vector of length 2 specifying the names of the longitude and latitude columns (or X and Y coordinates). Defaults to c("lon", "lat").
crs	Character or numeric. The Coordinate Reference System (CRS) of the input coordinates. Can be specified as an EPSG code (e.g., "EPSG:4326" or 4326) or a WKT string. Defaults to "EPSG:4326" (WGS84 longitude/latitude).
remove	Logical. If TRUE (default), the coordinate columns specified in coords are removed from the output.
na.fail	Logical. If TRUE (default), the function errors if any missing values (NAs) are found in the coordinate columns.
conn	A connection object to a DuckDB database. If NULL, the function runs on a temporary DuckDB database.
name	A character string of length one specifying the name of the table, or a character string of length two specifying the schema and table names. If NULL (the default), the function returns the result as an sf object
mode	Character. Controls the return type. Options: "duckspatial" (default): Lazy spatial data frame backed by dbplyr/DuckDB "sf": Eagerly collected sf object (uses memory) Can be set globally via ddbs_options(mode = "...") or per-function via this argument. Per-function overrides global setting.
overwrite	Boolean. whether to overwrite the existing table if it exists. Defaults to FALSE. This argument is ignored when name is NULL.
quiet	A logical value. If TRUE, suppresses any informational messages. Defaults to FALSE.
...	Additional arguments. Currently supports geom_col to specify the name of the geometry column in the output.

Value

Depends on the mode argument (or global preference set by ddbs_options):

• duckspatial (default): A duckspatial_df (lazy spatial data frame) backed by dbplyr/DuckDB.

• sf: An eagerly collected object in R memory, that will return the same data type as the sf equivalent (e.g. sf or units vector).

When name is provided, the result is also written as a table or view in DuckDB and the function returns TRUE (invisibly).

Examples

## Not run: 
## load packages
library(duckspatial)

## create sample data with coordinates
cities_df <- data.frame(
  city = c("Buenos Aires", "Córdoba", "Rosario"),
  lon = c(-58.3816, -64.1811, -60.6393),
  lat = c(-34.6037, -31.4201, -32.9468),
  population = c(3075000, 1391000, 1193605)
)

# option 1: convert data frame to sf object
cities_ddbs <- ddbs_as_points(cities_df)

# specify custom coordinate column names and keep them in output
cities_df2 <- data.frame(
  city = c("Mendoza", "Tucumán"),
  longitude = c(-68.8272, -65.2226),
  latitude = c(-32.8895, -26.8241)
)

ddbs_as_points(cities_df2, coords = c("longitude", "latitude"), remove = FALSE)


## option 2: convert table in duckdb to spatial table

# create a duckdb connection and write data
conn <- duckspatial::ddbs_create_conn()
DBI::dbWriteTable(conn, "cities_tbl", cities_df, overwrite = TRUE)

# convert to spatial table in database
ddbs_as_points(
    x = "cities_tbl",
    conn = conn,
    name = "cities_spatial",
    overwrite = TRUE
)

# read the spatial table
ddbs_read_table(conn, "cities_spatial")

## End(Not run)

duckspatial documentation built on June 22, 2026, 9:08 a.m.