Technical Notes

In nara: Native Raster Image Tools

knitr::opts_chunk$set(
  collapse = TRUE,
  comment = "#>"
)

library(nara)

What is a native raster image and why is it fast?

A native raster image is a built-in datatype in R.

It is an integer matrix where each integer represents the RGBA color at a single pixel. The 32-bit integer at each location is interpreted within R to be four color channels (RGBA) represented by 8 bits each.

This way of encoding color information is closer to the internal representation used by graphics devices, and therefore can be faster to render and manipulate.

Native rasters do not use pre-multiplied alpha.

In-place operation

{nara} tries to minimise R function calls and memory allocations in order to be fast.

When updating native raster image with this package, changes are done in place on the current image i.e. a new image is not created.

Anti-aliasing/Interpolation

No anti-aliasing is done by the draw methods in this package.

No interpolation is done - x and y values for drawing coordinates are always rounded to integers.

Dimension ordering

All arguments specifying dimensions are in the order horizontal then vertical i.e.

• x, y
• width, height
• hjust, vjust

Coordinate System

The coordinate system for nara native raster image has the origin at the top left corner with coordinates (0, 0).

This is equivalent to {grid} graphics using native units.

It is also how {magick} represents image coordinates, as well as the majority of C graphics libraries.

nara documentation built on May 28, 2026, 5:07 p.m.