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The Manhattan-plot package for GWAS results, finished and dormant since 2017.
Comparison · Analytics
constants vs ravetools
A side-by-side editorial comparison of constants and ravetools — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
constants vs ravetools: at a glance
What is constants?
The R package for CODATA constants rebuilt its symbol table on NIST's naming so future updates stop being hand work.
constants exposes the CODATA recommended values of the physical constants to R, as a data frame plus symbol lists that carry units, uncertainties, or both. The package reached 1.0.0 on the 2018 CODATA release and has shipped once since, purely to track a units package update. Its surface is small and its release cadence is bound to CODATA, which revises every few years.
What is ravetools?
RAVE's signal-processing toolkit taught base R graphics to render lit 3D brain meshes.
ravetools supplies the signal processing and now the rendering primitives behind RAVE, a suite for analyzing intracranial electroencephalography. Its earlier releases built out Matlab-equivalent filtering, Welch spectra and wavelet tooling; 0.2.6 changes register entirely, adding plot_mesh_dotcloud and plot_mesh_polygon to draw 3D surface meshes in base R graphics with no rgl dependency, plus arbitrary clipping planes and per-mesh alpha.
constants vs ravetools: editorial side-by-side
constants
0.0ANALYTICS
The R package for CODATA constants rebuilt its symbol table on NIST's naming so future updates stop being hand work.
◆ Current state
constants exposes the CODATA recommended values of the physical constants to R, as a data frame plus symbol lists that carry units, uncertainties, or both. The package reached 1.0.0 on the 2018 CODATA release and has shipped once since, purely to track a units package update. Its surface is small and its release cadence is bound to CODATA, which revises every few years.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction set at 1.0.0 was to stop being a curated convenience wrapper and become a mechanical mirror of NIST. Hand-crafted symbol names were replaced with NIST's own ASCII symbols, categories adopted NIST's, and uncertainty switched from relative to absolute — all framed by the maintainer as necessary to make future CODATA updates routine. On top of that the package gained a correlation matrix and optional integration with the quantities package, moving it from a lookup table toward something that can propagate uncertainty.
◆ Prediction
Having rebuilt the symbol table specifically so CODATA revisions become mechanical, the next substantive release most likely tracks a new CODATA dataset rather than adding API. The experimental correlated-value support, disabled by default at 1.0.0, is the one part these entries flag as unfinished.
ravetools
0.0ANALYTICS
RAVE's signal-processing toolkit taught base R graphics to render lit 3D brain meshes.
◆ Current state
ravetools supplies the signal processing and now the rendering primitives behind RAVE, a suite for analyzing intracranial electroencephalography. Its earlier releases built out Matlab-equivalent filtering, Welch spectra and wavelet tooling; 0.2.6 changes register entirely, adding plot_mesh_dotcloud and plot_mesh_polygon to draw 3D surface meshes in base R graphics with no rgl dependency, plus arbitrary clipping planes and per-mesh alpha.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is absorbing the visualization layer that RAVE previously delegated to WebGL-backed renderers, and doing it in a way that works in headless and figure-generating contexts. Exporting ensure_mesh3d to coerce mesh3d, ieegio_surface, fs.surface and surf.asc into one canonical form makes ravetools the convergence point for surface formats across the wider toolchain — the sibling ieegio package shipped its own base R plot method within minutes of this release.
◆ Prediction
Expect the base R renderers to pick up the features rgl users would miss next — richer materials, labeling and camera control — and for more of the RAVE stack to route surface handling through ensure_mesh3d.
Alternatives to constants and ravetools
Other Analytics products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either constants or ravetools.
austraits
The R client for AusTraits spends its releases chasing the dataset it reads.
ggdemetra
A ggplot2 layer for seasonal adjustment output, filling in one plot type at a time.
fossilsim
A fossil-record simulator that quietly grew a trait-evolution engine.
tern.rbmi
Reference-based multiple imputation tables, shipping only what CRAN checks demand.
tern.mmrm
An MMRM tabulation package that has published nothing since its 2024 CRAN releases.
See all constants alternatives → · See all ravetools alternatives →
Recent activity from constants and ravetools
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2mo agoravetools3D mesh rendering arrives in base R, without rgl ⚡
- 1y agoravetoolsravetools 0.2.1
- 3y agoravetoolsStimulation interpolation and faster quantiles
- 5y agoconstantsCompatibility fix for units 0.7-0
- 5y agoconstantsconstants 1.0.0 ⚡
- 8y agoconstantsUnit handling fixes ahead of the 1.0.0 rebuild
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between constants and ravetools?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. constants and ravetools are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is constants better than ravetools?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. constants and ravetools are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to constants?
Top constants alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "constants alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/constants-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to ravetools?
Top ravetools alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ravetools alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ravetools-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.