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Comparison · Analytics
GDPuc vs oblicubes
A side-by-side editorial comparison of GDPuc and oblicubes — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
GDPuc vs oblicubes: at a glance
What is GDPuc?
A GDP unit converter that keeps widening which currencies and deflators it will accept
GDPuc converts GDP figures between currencies, base years and price bases, using World Bank conversion factors, and is used as a dependency inside the madrat/magclass modelling stack. The 1.6.x line introduced xCU as a unit — local currency of any country x — added arguments for non-default iso3c and year columns, and made the package work with madrat caching and region mappings. The most recent release fixes a bug in iso3c column selection.
What is oblicubes?
A tiny grid renderer for oblique-projection cubes, complete since its first release.
oblicubes draws 3D cubes and cuboids in oblique projection as grid grobs, with ggplot2 geom wrappers and a height-matrix helper for turning elevation data into coordinates. The entire feature set arrived in the initial 0.1.2 release, adapted from coolbutuseless's isocubes and cj-holmes's isocuboids. The two releases since have widened compatibility rather than added anything.
GDPuc vs oblicubes: editorial side-by-side
GDPuc
0.0ANALYTICS
A GDP unit converter that keeps widening which currencies and deflators it will accept
◆ Current state
GDPuc converts GDP figures between currencies, base years and price bases, using World Bank conversion factors, and is used as a dependency inside the madrat/magclass modelling stack. The 1.6.x line introduced xCU as a unit — local currency of any country x — added arguments for non-default iso3c and year columns, and made the package work with madrat caching and region mappings. The most recent release fixes a bug in iso3c column selection.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction is toward accepting messier inputs from more callers. Successive releases have relaxed assumptions the package originally made — that a year column exists, that column names follow a convention, that PPP data is available for every country — and each relaxation is driven by an integration rather than by an economics question. The one genuinely methodological addition is the CPI as an alternative deflator, which arrived in 1.0.0.
◆ Prediction
Conversion factors are versioned World Bank data and were last refreshed in 1.0.0, so a data update is the most likely content of the next substantive release, alongside continued fixes to the column-detection logic that has now produced bugs twice.
oblicubes
0.0ANALYTICS
A tiny grid renderer for oblique-projection cubes, complete since its first release.
◆ Current state
oblicubes draws 3D cubes and cuboids in oblique projection as grid grobs, with ggplot2 geom wrappers and a height-matrix helper for turning elevation data into coordinates. The entire feature set arrived in the initial 0.1.2 release, adapted from coolbutuseless's isocubes and cj-holmes's isocuboids. The two releases since have widened compatibility rather than added anything.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is finished and its maintainer is treating it that way. 1.0.0 removed the R 4.1 native pipe from examples specifically so earlier R versions could use it — reaching backward, not forward — and added image alt text. The only change since is swapping a deprecated dplyr call in examples.
◆ Prediction
Expect nothing beyond occasional dependency deprecation fixes; the release pattern shows a small, deliberately complete package being kept installable.
Alternatives to GDPuc and oblicubes
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 GDPuc or oblicubes.
parallelDist
parallelDist is in pure preservation mode — one build fix every few years.
cairo
Cairo finally catches R's graphics engine, all the way to GE API 16.
rjdqa
rjdqa keeps refining one screen: the seasonal adjustment quality dashboard
epikit
epikit narrows to field-epidemiology helpers, handing proportions to a sibling package
SimInf
SimInf 10.0 turns an epidemic simulator into a tool that fits models to real time series
See all GDPuc alternatives → · See all oblicubes alternatives →
Recent activity from GDPuc and oblicubes
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 6mo agooblicubesExamples updated to dplyr::reframe()
- 8mo agoGDPucFix iso3c column selection
- 8mo agoGDPucxCU unit introduced; madrat caching and region mappings supported
- 1y agooblicubesR 4.1 pipe removed from examples; image alt text added
- 1y agoGDPucBetter column detection; magclass objects without years accepted
- 2y agoGDPucCPI added as an alternative deflator; constant euro conversion
- 3y agoGDPucSuggests field cleaned for CRAN compliance
- 3y agoGDPucCorrect conversion factors returned by return_cfs
- 3y agooblicubesInitial release: oblique-projection cube and cuboid grobs
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between GDPuc and oblicubes?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. GDPuc and oblicubes 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 GDPuc better than oblicubes?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. GDPuc and oblicubes 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 GDPuc?
Top GDPuc alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "GDPuc alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/gdpuc-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to oblicubes?
Top oblicubes alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "oblicubes alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/oblicubes-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.