6. How `raster` functions map to `stars` functions

In stars: Spatiotemporal Arrays, Raster and Vector Data Cubes

For a better version of the stars vignettes see https://r-spatial.github.io/stars/articles/

knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = FALSE, collapse = TRUE, dev = "png")
suppressPackageStartupMessages(library(dplyr))
knitr::opts_chunk$set(fig.height = 4.5)
knitr::opts_chunk$set(fig.width = 6)

Here's an attempt at the table describing how raster functions map to stars functions, discussed in issue #122. This table uses the functionality of the raster package as a template; it may be incomplete, imprecise or plain wrong, so take it with a pinch of salt. Any comment or correction is hugely appreciated, please contribute!

Some of the functions (filter, slice, mutate, select, pull, ...) are provided via dplyr, which must be loaded. See ?stars::dplyr.

COMMENT LEGEND

? = Not sure / unknown

* = Not present, low priority

# = Not present, high priority

NA = Not available by design

Creating objects

tribble(
  ~raster, ~stars, ~`Note/comment`,
  "{raster, stack, brick} (read)", "read_stars or read_stars(along = ...)","",
  "{stack, brick} (concatenate layers)", "c or c(along = ...)","",
  "subset", "{[ ] , slice, filter}","",
  "addLayer", "c() or c(along = ...)","",
  "dropLayer", "{[ ] , slice, filter}","",
  "unstack", "combine lapply and {[ ] , slice, filter}",""
) %>% 
  knitr::kable()

Changing spatial extent and/or resolution of objects

tribble(
  ~raster, ~stars, ~`Note/comment`,
  "merge", "c", "#, currently only works for adjacent objects",
  "mosaic", "st_mosaic", "these are not identical, read the docs carefully",
  "crop", "filter, st_crop", "",
  "setExtent", "", "# maybe use st_warp?",
  "trim", "", "#",
  "aggregate", "aggregate", "WIP; raster's aggregate with fact=2 will not work, use st_warp in that case?",
  "disaggregate", "", "# use st_warp(use_gdal = TRUE)?",
  "resample", "{st_transform, st_warp}", "",
  "projectRaster", "{st_transform, st_warp}", "",
  "shift", "", "#, now use st_set_dimensions",
  "flip", "[] with reversed index", "#",
  "rotate", "", "*",
  "t", "", "NA"
) %>% 
  knitr::kable()

Cell based computation

tribble(
  ~raster, ~stars, ~`Note/comment`,
  "calc", "st_apply", "",
  "overlay", "c(along = , ...) %>% st_apply(...)", "",
  "cover", "[ ] <-", "",
  "mask", "[ ], st_crop", "when using an sf polygon as mask",
  "mask", "[ ]<- NA", "when using a stars object to mask",
  "cut", "cut", "",
  "subs", "", "",
  "reclassify", "mutate with case_when", "or forcats::fct_recode ?",
  "reclassify", "cut", "see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/70619002/reclassify-2d-stars-array/",
  "init", "[ ] <-", "",
  "stackApply", "{[ ] , slice, filter} %>% st_apply", "",
  "stackSelect", "", "",
) %>% 
  knitr::kable()

Spatial contextual computation

tribble(
  ~raster, ~stars, ~`Note/comment`,
  "distance", "", "#",
  "gridDistance", "", "*",
  "distanceFromPoints", "", "#",
  "direction", "", "*",
  "focal", "f = st_apply(x1, 3, foc, w = matrix(1, 3, 3))", "See. [issue 176](https://github.com/r-spatial/stars/issues/176)",
  "localFun", "", "*",
  "boundaries", "st_as_sf(as_points=FALSE, merge=TRUE, connect8=TRUE)", "",
  "clump", "st_as_sf(r, merge = TRUE)", "`st_as_sf` returns polygons, `clump` a raster",
  "adjacent", "", "*",
  "area", "st_area", "",
  "terrain", "", "#",
  "Moran", "", ""
) %>% 
  knitr::kable()

Model predictions

tribble(
  ~raster, ~stars, ~`Note/comment`,
  "predict", "predict", "",
  "interpolate", "gstat::idw, gstat::krige", "`st_warp` has raster-raster interpolations of `gdalwarp`"
) %>% 
  knitr::kable()

Data type conversion

tribble(
  ~raster, ~stars, ~`Note/comment`,
  "rasterize", "st_as_stars", "",
  "rasterToPoints", "st_as_sf(as_points=TRUE)", "",
  "rasterToPolygons", "st_as_sf(as_points=FALSE, ...), st_polygonize", "",
  "rasterToContour", "st_contour", "requires GDAL >= 2.4.0",
  "rasterFromXYZ", "", "",
  "rasterFromCells", "", "",
) %>% 
  knitr::kable()

Summarizing

tribble(
  ~raster, ~stars, ~`Note/comment`,
  "cellStats", "st_apply", "",
  "summary", "print, summary(as.vector(. %>% pull))", "",
  "freq", "table", "*",
  "crosstab", "", "",
  "unique", "unique(as.vector(. %>% pull))", "",
  "zonal", "", "*"
) %>% 
  knitr::kable()

Accessing values of objects

tribble(
  ~raster, ~stars, ~`Note/comment`,
  "getValues", "{pull, [[ ]]}", "",
  "getValuesBlock", "{[ ] , slice, filter} %>% pull", "",
  "getValuesFocal", "{[ ] , slice, filter} %>% pull", "",
  "as.matrix", "[[ ]]", "currently behaves somewhat unexpectedly *", 
  "as.array", "[[ ]]", "currently behaves somewhat unexpectedly *", 
  "extract (by cell)", "{[ ] , slice, filter}", "",
  "extract (by polygon)", "x[sf_object]", "",
  "extract (by point)", "aggregate(stars_object, sf_object, function(x) x[1], as_points = FALSE)", "",
  "sampleRandom", "", "*", 
  "sampleRegular", "", "*",
  "minValue", "purrr::map(x, min)", "",
  "maxValue", "purrr::map(x, max)", "",
  "setMinMax", "", "," 
) %>% 
  knitr::kable()

Plotting

tribble(
  ~raster, ~stars, ~`Note/comment`,
  "plot", "plot, geom_stars", "",
  "plotRGB", "plot(x, rgb =...)", "",
  "spplot", "-", "",
  "image", "image", "",
  "persp", "-", "",
  "contour", "(st_contour, then sf::plot)", "",
  "filledContour", "(same)", "",
  "text", "text", "",
  "`hist`", "`hist(x[[1]])`", "",
  "barplot", "", "",
  "density", "", "",
  "pairs", "", "",
  "boxplot", "", ""
) %>% 
  knitr::kable()

Getting and setting dimensions

tribble(
  ~raster, ~stars, ~`Note/comment`,
  "ncol", "dim(x)[1]", "or use name instead of 1; cols may be the second dimension!", 
  "nrow", "dim(x)[2]", "or use name instead of 2; rows may be the first dimension!", 
  "ncell", "prod(dim(x))", "",
  "res", "st_dimensions", "can also not be a constant in case of rectilinear or curvilinear grids", 
  "nlayers", "-", "there is no concept of layers in stars", 
  "names", "names", "",
  "xres", "st_res(x)[1]", "may not be a constant in case of rectilinear or curvilinear grids", 
  "yres", "st_res(x)[2]", "may not be a constant in case of rectilinear or curvilinear grids", 
  "xmin", "st_bbox(x)[1]", "",
  "xmax", "st_bbox(x)[3]", "",
  "ymin", "st_bbox(x)[2]", "",
  "ymax", "st_bbox(x)[4]", "",
  "extent", "st_bbox(x)", "different ordering of numbers", 
  "origin", "-", "",
  "projection", "st_crs(x)", "",
  "isLonLat", "st_is_longlat(st_crs(x))", "",
  "filename", "", "stars_proxy objects carry file names where otherwise the array data is", 
  "bandnr", "", "stars has no general concept of bands", 
  "nbands", "dim(x)[3]", "may also be time; bands may also be in another dimension, or have another name", 
  "compareRaster", "all.equal(st_dimensions(x), st_dimensions(y))", "*", 
  "NAvalue", "", "-"
) %>% 
  knitr::kable()

Computing row, column, cell numbers and coordinates

tribble(
  ~raster, ~stars, ~`Note/comment`,
  "xFromCol", "st_get_dimension_values(., 'x')[col]", "I am not sure how to generally get the x dimension name - here it is x",
  "yFromRow", "st_get_dimension_values(., 'y')[row]", "I am not sure how to generally get the y dimension name - here it is y", 
  "xFromCell", "", "",
  "yFromCell", "", "",
  "xyFromCell", "", "", 
  "colFromX", "", "*",
  "rowFromY", "", "*", 
  "rowColFromCell", "", "",
  "cellFromXY", "st_cells()", "",
  "cellFromRowCol", "", "",
  "cellsFromExtent", "", "",
  "coordinates", "st_coordinates", "",
  "validCell", "", "",
  "validCol", "col %>% between(st_dimensions(.)$x$from, st_dimensions(.)$x$to)", "raster columns are not always named 'x'", 
  "validRow", "row %>% between(st_dimensions(.)$y$from, st_dimensions(.)$y$to)", "raster columns are not always named 'y'", 
  "setValues", "[ ] <-", "",
  "writeRaster", "write_stars", "currently uses GDAL, somewhat limited", 
  "KML", "", ""
) %>% 
  knitr::kable()

The format of this table follows the raster-package entry in the raster manual, found at https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/raster/raster.pdf.

stars documentation built on April 4, 2025, 4:34 a.m.