Common types of spatial data

Visualizing Geospatial Data in R

Charlotte Wickham

Assistant Professor at Oregon State University

Types of spatial data

Point

point data.png

Types of spatial data

Point
Line

line data.png

Types of spatial data

Point
Line
Polygon

polygon data.png

Types of spatial data

Point
Line
Polygon
Raster (aka gridded)

raster data.png

House prices by ward

Wards are areas that have roughly equal numbers of people
Can be described by polygons

head(ward_sales)

  ward       lon      lat group order num_sales avg_price 
1    1 -123.3128 44.56531   0.1     1       159  311626.9 
2    1 -123.3122 44.56531   0.1     2       159  311626.9 
3    1 -123.3121 44.56531   0.1     3       159  311626.9
4    1 -123.3119 44.56531   0.1     4       159  311626.9 
5    1 -123.3119 44.56485   0.1     5       159  311626.9 
6    1 -123.3119 44.56430   0.1     6       159  311626.9

Drawing polygons is tricky

Order matters

polygon order.png

Drawing polygons is tricky

Order matters
Some areas may need more than one polygon

multiple polygons.png

Predicted house prices

head(preds)

        lon      lat predicted_price
1 -123.3168 44.52539        258936.2
2 -123.3168 44.52740        257258.4
3 -123.3168 44.52940        255543.1
4 -123.3168 44.53141        253791.0
5 -123.3168 44.53342        252002.4
6 -123.3168 44.53542        250178.7

Let's practice!

Visualizing Geospatial Data in R