R Observatory: Metrics for aboveR version 1.0.0

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

This package was removed from CRAN on 2026-06-09. Its history is shown below.

Reason: requires archived package 'lidR'

Details below reflect version 1.0.0, its last release before removal.

aboveR

1.0.0Package record

'LiDAR' Terrain Analysis and Change Detection from Above

0packages depend

1.7Kdownloads / year

–test coverage

–flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Chris LyonsCRAN page ↗GitHub ↗

Terrain change detection, cut and fill volume estimation, terrain profiling, flood inundation analysis, slope and aspect computation, hillshade generation, contour extraction, reclamation monitoring, erosion analysis, and engineering export (LandXML, STL) from 'LiDAR' (Light Detection and Ranging) point clouds and digital elevation models ('DEMs'). Applications include surface mine reclamation monitoring, sediment pond capacity tracking, highwall safety classification, and erosion channel detection. Built on 'lidR' for point cloud I/O and 'terra' for raster operations. Includes access utilities for 'KyFromAbove' cloud-native elevation data on Amazon Web Services ('AWS') https://kyfromabove.ky.gov/. Methods for terrain change detection and volume estimation follow Li and others (2005) doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2004.10.007.

Changes in 1.0.0

New Features

**Terrain derivatives:** slope_aspect(), hillshade(), contour_lines(), and zonal_stats() for slope, aspect, shaded relief, contour generation, and general-purpose zonal statistics.
**Flood analysis:** flood_inundation() for binary inundation masks, flood_depth() for water depth rasters, and height_above_drainage() implementing the HAND model for flood susceptibility mapping.
**Mining analysis:** bench_detection() identifies flat mining benches adjacent to highwall faces using slope segmentation.
**Engineering export:** export_landxml() writes LandXML TIN surfaces for Civil 3D, Bentley OpenRoads, and Trimble. export_stl() writes STL meshes for 3D printing terrain models.

Show all changes in 1.0.0Hide the rest of the changes in 1.0.0

**KyFromAbove counties:** kfa_county_bbox() and kfa_list_counties() provide bounding box lookup for all 120 Kentucky counties.
**Color ramps:** change_colors(), terrain_colors(), and flood_colors() are now exported for use in custom visualizations.
**has_s3_access()** is now exported for use in @examplesIf guards.

Security

Added sanitize_filename() to prevent path traversal in cached file names.
Added validate_kfa_url() to verify download URLs originate from the KyFromAbove S3 bucket.
Added safe_download() with configurable timeout (300s default), retry with exponential backoff (3 attempts), and file size limits (500 MB default).
kfa_read_dem(), kfa_read_pointcloud(), and kfa_tile_index() now use the hardened download functions.

Documentation

Added CITATION.cff and .zenodo.json for DOI-based citation.
Added community health files: CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, SECURITY.md, SUPPORT.md, ATTRIBUTION.md, CHANGELOG.md, DEVELOPMENT.md, DISCLAIMER.md, GOVERNANCE.md, MAINTAINERS.md, PRIVACY.md, RESPONSIBLE_USE.md.
Added GitHub issue and PR templates.

Infrastructure

Added Codecov integration for test coverage reporting.
Added Dependabot for GitHub Actions dependency updates.
Added CodeQL security scanning workflow.
Added dependency review workflow for pull requests.
Added stale issue/PR bot.

From NEWS.md in the release

Install

R (source archive)pak (dev)

url <- "https://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/aboveR/aboveR_1.0.0.tar.gz"
pkgFile <- "aboveR_1.0.0.tar.gz"
download.file(url, pkgFile)
install.packages(pkgFile, type = "source", repos = NULL)

This package is no longer on CRAN, so install.packages() cannot fetch it by name. This downloads the last archived source (1.0.0) and builds it locally. Install its dependencies first, and note that building from source needs the usual compiler toolchain.

if (!requireNamespace("pak", quietly = TRUE))
  install.packages("pak", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")
pak::pak("chrislyonsKY/aboveR")

Development version from chrislyonsKY/aboveR. Installs pak first if it is not already available.

Health

CRAN checks

CRAN check results are not tracked yet.

Status changes

OK13 OK2026-06-09
ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-06-08
OK5 OK2026-03-20

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 1.0.0

READMEYes · 87 wordsVignettesYes · 1 · dynamicNEWSYes · 100% structured · mentions 1.0.0Citation fileNoWebsitenot declared in DESCRIPTION

Help pages: 34 (1 internal)includes a package overview page
Examples that run: 94%31 run in a plain check (5 of them under a condition) · 2 only when donttest examples are enabled (R CMD check --as-cran)
Exported functions with examples: 100%
Documented parameters: 100%
Return-value docs: 100%
Help pages citing references: 0%

How these are measured

Downloads

1.7K

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #25,761 · ~5/day · ~139/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

030 days

090 days

1.7K1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on66 r2u

How downloads are counted

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

15 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Depends (1)

R >= 4.1.0

Imports (3)

lidR terra sf

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (12)

covr rstac httr2 cli rgl mapview ggplot2 whitebox withr testthat knitr rmarkdown

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

0direct

–indirect (not tracked)

Nothing depends on this yet.

How these are counted

Code & Tests

People & History

People (1)

Chris Lyons

Author, Maintainer since 0.1.0 (2026)

Releases (2)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

archivedRemoved from CRAN
2026-06-09
requires archived package 'lidR'
R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
1.0.0
record
2026-04-03 · diff ↗ ·
added 15 exports
bench_detection, change_colors, contour_lines, export_landxml, export_stl, flood_colors, flood_depth, flood_inundation, height_above_drainage, hillshade, kfa_county_bbox, kfa_list_counties, slope_aspect, terrain_colors, zonal_stats
0.1.0
record
2026-03-19
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11

Package metadata

First published: 2026-03-19
Total releases: 2 / 1 yrs
License: MIT + file LICENSE OSI
Minimum R: ≥ 4.1.0

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("aboveR")

Format

Lyons, C. (n.d.). aboveR: 'LiDAR' Terrain Analysis and Change Detection from Above (Version 1.0.0) [Computer software]. Retrieved October 27, 2026, from https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=aboveR

This package has no citation file, so citation() returns this entry built from DESCRIPTION.

Cite the R Observatory

For a number measured here: a download total, a coverage figure, an archival date.

Format

APA

Balamuta, J. J. (2026). R Observatory: Metrics for aboveR version 1.0.0 [Data set]. HJJB, LLC. Data release v2026-10-26. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21843040

From data release v2026-10-26, which the citation names so these numbers can be found later. More on citing and the projects behind them.

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