I went back to the help page, but it still didn't clarify it for me. Yes, the two files are different length, but both have a zip variable that they can match on and then keep only those records that match. Or do I need to additionally create an index for the match to occur? I am understanding it that unionSpatialPolygons functions works very much in the same way as merge, except with geographical data. Am I wrong in this assumption?
On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 3:09 AM, Roger Bivand <roger.biv...@nhh.no> wrote: > On Tue, 21 Apr 2009, Alina Sheyman wrote: > > Hi Roger, >> > > Alina, > > Don't take this offlist, summarise to the list when done so that others can > learn from your experiences. > > when I follow the example in maptools >> >> coordinates(mass) <- c("lat", "long") >> reg4 <- unionSpatialPolygons(zipmaps3, mass$center_id) >> > > Right, you have not read the unionSpatialPolygons help page carefully, have > you? > > Do: > > length(mass$center_id) > length(slot(zipmaps3, "polygons") > > They differ - your mass are the districts, zipmaps3 are the zips. zipmaps3 > has a variable giving the district IDs, what is it called? If you do > > table(zipmaps3$district_IDs) > > you see the numbers of zips in each district. This is your second argument > to unionSpatialPolygons; it tells the functions which zips belong to each > district. If you don't have such a variable, you'll have to make it. This is > all explained on the help page, and in the example. It is very much like the > other tapply(), by() and aggregate() functions, but only returns the > geometries. > > Hope this helps, > > Roger > > > >> I get the following error message >> Error in unionSpatialPolygons(zipmaps3, mass$center_id) : >> input lengths differ >> >> Do you know why that is? Do I in fact need to have two files of identical >> length in order for the >> function to work? >> >> thank you >> >> On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 3:17 PM, Roger Bivand <roger.biv...@nhh.no> >> wrote: >> >> On Tue, 21 Apr 2009, Alina Sheyman wrote: >>> >>> To rephrase my question and explain my problem further >>> >>>> I have already created a map for revenue by zip code, in the state of >>>> Massachusetts. To accomplish that I used a shapefile for Massachusetts >>>> and >>>> a >>>> dataframe with my revenue/zip codes. >>>> >>>> What I am trying to do now is to have the same map done not by zip code, >>>> but >>>> rather by districts, as defined by zip codes. >>>> >>>> Basically what I've done was to introduce a new variable "district" into >>>> my >>>> dataset along with a zip code. At the same time my basic state map (by >>>> zip) >>>> still comes from a shape file and I can't introduce a new variable into >>>> the >>>> shape file. >>>> >>>> Does anyone know if there's any way I can accomplish what I'm trying >>>> to >>>> do or do I basically need to create a new shapefile with districts >>>> already >>>> in the file? >>>> >>>> >>> OK, that wasn't too clear before. Look at unionSpatialPolygons() in >>> maptools - it will take a vector of districts matching all your zip >>> codes, >>> and join together the geometries belonging to each district, dropping >>> internal boundaries. The district IDs become the Polygons object IDs. >>> There >>> is no data frame in the object, because it isn't obvious how you might >>> want >>> to aggregate it. >>> >>> Hope this helps, >>> >>> Roger >>> >>> >>> >>> On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 5:53 PM, Don MacQueen <m...@llnl.gov> wrote: >>>> >>>> This is a pretty general question, and there are potentially many ways >>>> to >>>> >>>>> do it. >>>>> >>>>> One way to get started would be to follow the example(s) in the help >>>>> page >>>>> for the overlay() function in the sp package. >>>>> >>>>> -Don >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> At 1:26 PM -0400 4/20/09, Alina Sheyman wrote: >>>>> >>>>> I have a list of made-up districts and corresponding zip codes. Based >>>>> >>>>>> on >>>>>> that I want to define my own polygons (for each district) and then use >>>>>> them >>>>>> to create a map. Does anyone know how I would go about defining these? >>>>>> >>>>>> thank you >>>>>> >>>>>> [[alternative HTML version deleted]] >>>>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> R-sig-Geo mailing list >>>>>> R-sig-Geo@stat.math.ethz.ch >>>>>> https:// stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-geo >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> -------------------------------------- >>>>> Don MacQueen >>>>> Environmental Protection Department >>>>> Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory >>>>> Livermore, CA, USA >>>>> 925-423-1062 >>>>> -------------------------------------- >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> [[alternative HTML version deleted]] >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> R-sig-Geo mailing list >>>> R-sig-Geo@stat.math.ethz.ch >>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-geo >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>> Roger Bivand >>> Economic Geography Section, Department of Economics, Norwegian School of >>> Economics and Business Administration, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, >>> Norway. voice: +47 55 95 93 55; fax +47 55 95 95 43 >>> e-mail: roger.biv...@nhh.no >>> >>> >>> >> > -- > Roger Bivand > Economic Geography Section, Department of Economics, Norwegian School of > Economics and Business Administration, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, > Norway. voice: +47 55 95 93 55; fax +47 55 95 95 43 > e-mail: roger.biv...@nhh.no > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] _______________________________________________ R-sig-Geo mailing list R-sig-Geo@stat.math.ethz.ch https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-geo