R/link2GI-package.R

In gisma/link2GI: Linking Geographic Information Systems, Remote Sensing and Other Command Line Tools

#' Functions for linking  GI/RS functionality to R
#'
#' @description A straightforward helper tool for linking  GI/RS functionality to R. The goal of the package 
#' is to correctly initialize both the existing wrapper packages \code{rgrass} and \code{RSAGA} and
#' to smoothly enable the necessary system variables and path parameters for a direct access of the binaries 
#' via direct system calls on all operating systems. In particular, \code{rgrass} and \code{RSAGA} can cause severe 
#' problems during initialization of parallel installations of \code{GRASS GIS} or \code{SAGA GIS} under the
#' Windows operating system(s). \code{link2GI} tries to set the correct system settings and returns if system 
#' calls are required the necessary paths and command strings. \cr
#' Furthermore the package provides a linkage to the Orfeo Toolbox (OTB) software. 
#' Due to the difficulties linking  the correct GDAL binaries  a  new system wide search for GDAL binaries is implemented.
#' \cr\cr
#' Finally  there are some usefull functions for creating project folder structures and project environments. To deal with the not always consistent API-calls of OTB a list based command parser and generator is provided.
#' 

#' @note To utilize the power of the open source GI tools from within \code{R} you need to install them first.
#' The link2GI package just tries to generate correct environment settings as system and path variables
#' for the most of the known issues. 
#'  The installation of the \code{QGIS, GRASS GIS 7.x} 
#'  and \code{SAGA-GIS} GIS software is described in the vignettes.\cr\cr 
#' \code{link2GI} is tested under Windows 7/10 as well as on the Ubuntu/Debian/Arch Linux distributions. 
#' The OSX operation system should run but is not tested (Any help is highly appreciated). 
#' @name link2GI
#' @docType package
#' @title Bridges to the GI-World
#' @author Chris Reudenbach Tim Appelhans
#' \cr
#' \emph{Maintainer:} Chris Reudenbach \email{reudenbach@@uni-marburg.de}
#'