rjd3highfreq
rjd3highfreq ships whatever the Java side ships, and only occasionally says what that was.
Comparison · Analytics
gridpattern vs units
A side-by-side editorial comparison of gridpattern and units — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
gridpattern vs units: at a glance
What is gridpattern?
gridpattern keeps widening its catalogue, and the newest patterns finally use the device's own line rendering.
An R package supplying pattern fills for grid graphics — stripes, weaves, polygon tilings, images and placeholders. Releases are infrequent and irregular, roughly one or two a year with an eighteen-month gap before the most recent. The work divides between adding pattern types and making the existing ones behave consistently, particularly around units and how spacing parameters are interpreted.
What is units?
units reaches 1.0 by rewriting its parser and accepting the breakage that comes with it.
units attaches physical units to R vectors on top of the udunits2 library, covering arithmetic, conversion and ggplot2 scales. Version 1.0-0 replaced the unit-expression tokenizer so numbers are consistently treated as prefixes, and expressions like ml/min/1.73m^2 now parse the way physiologists write them. Printing follows NIST conventions, and 1.0-1 is a fix pass over memory handling and parser edge cases.
gridpattern vs units: editorial side-by-side
gridpattern
0.0ANALYTICS
gridpattern keeps widening its catalogue, and the newest patterns finally use the device's own line rendering.
◆ Current state
An R package supplying pattern fills for grid graphics — stripes, weaves, polygon tilings, images and placeholders. Releases are infrequent and irregular, roughly one or two a year with an eighteen-month gap before the most recent. The work divides between adding pattern types and making the existing ones behave consistently, particularly around units and how spacing parameters are interpreted.
◆ Where it's heading
Two long-running efforts are visible. The first is unit consistency: v1.2.1 gave the geometry patterns a units parameter, v1.2.2 extended it to weave and fixed polygon tiling to respect it — the slow propagation of one design decision through a family of functions. The second is integration with R's own graphics capabilities, which reaches its clearest expression in v1.4.2's line pattern: rather than filling bands with solid colour as stripe does, it draws stroked lines through the device, so every built-in linetype including dotdash, twodash and custom hex specifications works. The package is also visibly maintaining its external dependencies, having rotated placeholder image services as hosts disappeared.
◆ Prediction
Expect further pattern types and continued propagation of the units parameter to any function still missing it; the entries give no indication of a change in the package's scope beyond pattern fills.
units
0.0ANALYTICS
units reaches 1.0 by rewriting its parser and accepting the breakage that comes with it.
◆ Current state
units attaches physical units to R vectors on top of the udunits2 library, covering arithmetic, conversion and ggplot2 scales. Version 1.0-0 replaced the unit-expression tokenizer so numbers are consistently treated as prefixes, and expressions like ml/min/1.73m^2 now parse the way physiologists write them. Printing follows NIST conventions, and 1.0-1 is a fix pass over memory handling and parser edge cases.
◆ Where it's heading
The long 0.8-x run was accretion — ggplot2 scales absorbed from ggforce, ud_convert(), matrix methods, steady performance work — while known parsing defects stayed in place. The 1.0 release finally traded backwards compatibility for correct parsing, and 1.0-1's pointer-wrapping and exception-propagation work suggests the C++ glue is being hardened behind it. Fixes cluster at the udunits2 boundary, which remains the main source of surprises.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued patch releases against udunits2 quirks and the new tokenizer's fallout rather than new surface area, with the ggplot2 integration and conversion helpers already in place.
Alternatives to gridpattern and units
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 gridpattern or units.
audubon
audubon's release feed is almost entirely Renovate bumping the JavaScript toolchain behind its Japanese text splitter.
affiner
affiner is quietly turning a grid transformation helper into a small computational geometry library.
ageproR
ageproR spent two years chasing a moving file format, then added the recruitment models that justify the effort.
r-ledger
ledger adds a Rust toolchain fallback, so beancount imports work whether or not the Python tooling is installed.
distributional
distributional taught + and - to work on any pair of distributions, closing the algebra it started with.
See all gridpattern alternatives → · See all units alternatives →
Recent activity from gridpattern and units
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agogridpatternHatch and line patterns added; wave gains ten new types
- 5mo agounitsMemory-leak and udunits2 parsing fixes after 1.0
- 10mo agounitsNew tokenizer parses compound units correctly ⚡
- 1y agounitsCopy semantics fix in ud_convert(); C++17 for old R
- 1y agounitscbind/rbind methods, ud_convert() and broad fixes
- 1y agounitsSilences a CRAN compiler warning
- 1y agogridpatternaRtsy generative patterns available as fills
- 2y agogridpatternunits parameter reaches weave; polygon tiling honours it
- 2y agogridpatternpatternFill() returns a grid pattern object; patterns can nest
- 2y agogridpatternText pattern example skipped on devices lacking the glyphs
- 2y agogridpatternreset_image_cache() added; R 4.1 feature detection offered standalone
- 2y agounitsRestores simplify=FALSE for identical units
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between gridpattern and units?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. gridpattern and units 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 gridpattern better than units?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. gridpattern and units 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 gridpattern?
Top gridpattern alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "gridpattern alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/gridpattern-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to units?
Top units alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "units alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/units-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.