Introduction

This tutorial describes a simple process for visualizing patterns in categorical data associated with pedon data.

Setup R Environment

This step is only required the first time you open R. These packages will be available via library() in later sessions.

With a recent version of R (>= 2.15), it is possible to get all of the packages that this tutorial depends on via:

# run these commands in the R console, only once
install.packages('aqp', dep=TRUE) # stable version from CRAN + dependencies
install.packages('soilDB', dep=TRUE) # stable version from CRAN + dependencies
install.packages('sharpshootR', dep=TRUE) # stable version from CRAN + dependencies

library(aqp)
library(sharpshootR)

# load some example NASIS data
data(loafercreek, package='soilDB')

# cut-down to a subset
loafercreek <- loafercreek[1:20, ]

# get depth class
sdc <- getSoilDepthClass(loafercreek)
site(loafercreek) <- sdc

# diagnostic properties to consider, no need to convert to factors
v <- c('lithic.contact', 'paralithic.contact', 'argillic.horizon', 
       'cambic.horizon', 'ochric.epipedon', 'mollic.epipedon', 'very.shallow',
       'shallow', 'mod.deep', 'deep', 'very.deep')


x <- diagnosticPropertyPlot(loafercreek, v, k=5, grid.label='bedrock_kind', dend.label = 'taxonname')

x <- diagnosticPropertyPlot(loafercreek, v, k=5, grid.label='pedon_id', dend.label = 'taxonname')

x <- diagnosticPropertyPlot2(loafercreek, v, k=5, grid.label='pedon_id')

x <- diagnosticPropertyPlot2(loafercreek, v, k=5, grid.label='taxonname')

## binary + multinominal categories

# new versions of fetchNASIS do this automatically
loafercreek$hillslope_pos <- factor(loafercreek$hillslope_pos, levels=c('Toeslope', 'Footslope', 'Backslope', 'Shoulder', 'Summit'))

# work-around: new function in sharpshootR
hp <- multinominal2logical(loafercreek, 'hillslope_pos')
site(loafercreek) <- hp

# init variable names
v <- c('lithic.contact', 'paralithic.contact', 'argillic.horizon', 
       'ochric.epipedon', 'mollic.epipedon', 'mod.deep', 'deep', 'very.deep', levels(loafercreek$hillslope_pos))

# should work as before
# use the 'sort.vars = FALSE' option to set the order of the variable names to the order they are listed in 'v'
x <- diagnosticPropertyPlot(loafercreek, v, k=5, grid.label='bedrock_kind', dend.label = 'taxonname', sort.vars = FALSE)

x <- diagnosticPropertyPlot2(loafercreek, v, k=5, grid.label='bedrock_kind', sort.vars = FALSE)

This document is based on sharpshootR version 0.9.7, aqp version 1.9.11, and soilDB version 1.8-1.