Create a Raster Object

Description

Functions to create a raster object (representing a bitmap image) and coerce other objects to a raster object.

Usage

is.raster(x)
as.raster(x, ...)

## S3 method for class 'matrix'
as.raster(x, max = 1, ...)
## S3 method for class 'array'
as.raster(x, max = 1, ...)

## S3 method for class 'logical'
as.raster(x, max = 1, ...)
## S3 method for class 'numeric'
as.raster(x, max = 1, ...)
## S3 method for class 'character'
as.raster(x, max = 1, ...)
## S3 method for class 'raw'
as.raster(x, max = 255L, ...)

Arguments

Details

An object of class "raster" is a matrix of colour values as given by rgb representing a bitmap image.

It is not expected that the user will need to call these functions directly; functions to render bitmap images in graphics packages will make use of the as.raster() function to generate a raster object from their input.

The as.raster() function is (S3) generic so methods can be written to convert other R objects to a raster object.

The default implementation for numeric matrices interprets scalar values on black-to-white scale.

Raster objects can be subsetted like a matrix and it is possible to assign to a subset of a raster object.

There is a method for converting a raster object to a matrix (of colour strings).

Raster objects can be compared for equality or inequality (with each other or with a colour string).

There is a is.na method which returns a logical matrix of the same dimensions as the raster object. Note that NA values are interpreted as the fully transparent colour by some (but not all) graphics devices.

Value

For as.raster(), a raster object.

For is.raster(), a logical indicating whether x is a raster object.

Note

Raster images are internally represented row-first, which can cause confusion when trying to manipulate a raster object. The recommended approach is to coerce a raster to a matrix, perform the manipulation, then convert back to a raster.

Examples

# A red gradient
as.raster(matrix(hcl(0, 80, seq(50, 80, 10)),
                 nrow = 4, ncol = 5))

# Vectors are 1-column matrices ...
#   character vectors are color names ...
as.raster(hcl(0, 80, seq(50, 80, 10)))
#   numeric vectors are greyscale ...
as.raster(1:5, max = 5)
#   logical vectors are black and white ...
as.raster(1:10 %% 2 == 0)

# ... unless nrow/ncol are supplied ...
as.raster(1:10 %% 2 == 0, nrow = 1)

# Matrix can also be logical or numeric (or raw) ...
as.raster(matrix(c(TRUE, FALSE), nrow = 3, ncol = 2))
as.raster(matrix(1:3/4, nrow = 3, ncol = 4))

# An array can be 3-plane numeric (R, G, B planes) ...
as.raster(array(c(0:1, rep(0.5, 4)), c(2, 1, 3)))

# ... or 4-plane numeric (R, G, B, A planes)
as.raster(array(c(0:1, rep(0.5, 6)), c(2, 1, 4)))

# subsetting
r <- as.raster(matrix(colors()[1:100], ncol = 10))
r[, 2]
r[2:4, 2:5]

# assigning to subset
r[2:4, 2:5] <- "white"

# comparison
r == "white"