RMVMR
RMVMR is being tidied in lockstep with MVMR, the package it wraps
A side-by-side editorial comparison of fasster and spatstat.geom — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
fasster arrives as a fable-compatible state space model for switching seasonality.
fasster implements FASSTER, a state space model with a switching component in the measurement equation, aimed at series carrying several seasonal patterns and abrupt structural change. Version 0.2.0 is the first substantive release: a formula interface with trend(), season(), fourier(), ARMA() and xreg() plus the %S% switching and %?% conditional operators, and the full fable method set. Parameters come from a filtering-and-smoothing heuristic rather than full optimisation.
The geometry layer under spatstat, steadily absorbing 3D patterns and missing-data semantics
spatstat.geom holds the spatial data structures and geometric operations the rest of the spatstat family builds on — windows, tessellations, images, point patterns and the operations that move between them. Recent releases split their attention between extending those structures to three dimensions and hardening the discretisation code where polygonal geometry meets a pixel grid. 3.8-2 adds more capabilities for three-dimensional point patterns.
fasster implements FASSTER, a state space model with a switching component in the measurement equation, aimed at series carrying several seasonal patterns and abrupt structural change. Version 0.2.0 is the first substantive release: a formula interface with trend(), season(), fourier(), ARMA() and xreg() plus the %S% switching and %?% conditional operators, and the full fable method set. Parameters come from a filtering-and-smoothing heuristic rather than full optimisation.
The package sat at a 2018 development version for over seven years, so the news is that it exists as a usable model at all. Implementing the whole fable contract — forecast(), refit(), stream(), interpolate(), components() — means it slots into an existing forecasting workflow instead of asking for its own. The heuristic estimator is the open question these entries leave unanswered.
The obvious next step is supplementing the heuristic parameter estimates with proper optimisation, though the two entries here give no direct signal on timing.
spatstat.geom holds the spatial data structures and geometric operations the rest of the spatstat family builds on — windows, tessellations, images, point patterns and the operations that move between them. Recent releases split their attention between extending those structures to three dimensions and hardening the discretisation code where polygonal geometry meets a pixel grid. 3.8-2 adds more capabilities for three-dimensional point patterns.
Two threads run through this window. The first is a family-wide push into 3D that originated in the simulation package and has now reached the geometry layer. The second is a slower semantic change: 3.5-0 introduced missing or unavailable (NA) spatial objects, and 3.6-0 followed with more facilities for handling them, meaning an absent window or image became a representable value rather than an error. Around both, the plotting and discretisation code accretes steadily — nonlinear colour maps, plot backgrounds, transparency control, signed distance transforms, and repeated attention to boundary pixels.
Expect the 3D surface here to keep filling in behind the simulation package rather than leading it, given that 3.8-2 follows the 3D simulation release by two months. The entries give no indication that the NA work is finished, since it has already spanned two releases.
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 fasster or spatstat.geom.
RMVMR is being tidied in lockstep with MVMR, the package it wraps
geoarrow tracks the GeoArrow spec and otherwise just keeps compiling
n2khab keeps retracting interpretations of habitat data it can't actually support
tidypolars is grinding toward complete dplyr coverage, one supported function at a time
OneSampleMR found that argument order in a formula was silently changing its estimates
bpbounds found the same swapped-cell bug twice and clamped its bounds back into range
See all fasster alternatives → · See all spatstat.geom alternatives →
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. spatstat.geom is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. spatstat.geom is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
Top fasster alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "fasster alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/fasster for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
Top spatstat.geom alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "spatstat.geom alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/spatstat-geom for the full list with editorial commentary on each.