blighty               package:blighty               R Documentation

_U_n_i_t_e_d _K_i_n_g_d_o_m _C_o_a_s_t_l_i_n_e

_D_e_s_c_r_i_p_t_i_o_n:

     Function for drawing the coastlines of the united Kingdom

_U_s_a_g_e:

     blighty(place, grid=FALSE, xlimits, ylimits)

_A_r_g_u_m_e_n_t_s:

   place: country of the United Kingdom - `"Scotland"', `"Wales"',
          `"England"', `"UK"' - default `"UK"'

    grid: `TRUE' or `FALSE' - places a grid in OS km over the map -
          default `FALSE'

 xlimits: vector of limits in OS km in which to draw the map

 ylimits: vector of limits in OS km in which to draw the map

_V_a_l_u_e:

     returns "Map complete" when finished.

_N_o_t_e:

     Inspired by the package `oz'. The original coordinates were taken
     from a scan of a map of England, Scotland and Wales in my 1936
     edition of The World of Wonder to avoid any copyright problems.
     The scan was then imported into xfig and the coastline and
     internal boundarys were digitised using the polyline function.
     Each section of coastline was then saved as seperate file. A small
     amount of hand editing of each file allows them to be read in as
     coordinate points in R (functions availible from the author). The
     problem with using such an early work from which to take the
     primary image is that bits which were present then may not be now
     as coastal errosion may have affected the East of England.

     The coordinate system was taken from various easily recognisable
     points of the UK coastline. The calculated error on these is in
     100s of metres, but I suspect the real error is far greater.
     Still, most features for which a grid reference from an Ordinance
     Survey map can be plotted on easily.

     Unfortunately The World of Wonder did not include a map of Ireland
     or the Northern Isles, so apologies to the Irish, Shetlanders and
     Orcadians.

     There is a slight error when plotting England as a bit of the
     South-East coast of Scotland gets in there, needs fixing.

     Don't use the `xlimits' and `ylimits' to zoom in too far as the
     point resolution isn't really up to it.

     It can also take a few minutes when drawing the whole of the
     United Kingdom, this is mainly because of the west coast of
     Scotland and Western Isles which because of their shape take up
     loads of data points.

_E_x_a_m_p_l_e_s:

     blighty()               # UK coastline
     blighty(grid=TRUE)      # UK coastline with grid
     blighty("Scotland")     # Scotland and the Western Isles
     blighty("Wales")        # Wales and Anglesey

     blighty("England", xlimits=c(400,600), ylimits=c(50, 200))
     box()                   # south of England and the Isle of Wight
                             # and the Thames Estuary

