monitOS
monitOS relicenses to MIT, the clearest signal in a sparse Novartis release feed.
A side-by-side editorial comparison of spatstat.model and spmodel — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
spatstat's inference layer builds out determinantal and cluster process fitting
spatstat.model fits point process models and provides the diagnostics that go with them. The recent window is dominated by determinantal point process work — a variance-covariance matrix and more diagnostics in 3.7-2, additional `intensity` and `repul` methods in 3.7-1, and ROC curves for determinantal models in 3.5-0. Cluster and Cox process inference has advanced in parallel, with Waagepetersen's composite likelihood arriving in 3.6-1.
Spatial regression in R, adding block kriging and then tuning the numerics underneath it
spmodel fits spatial linear and generalised linear models, for both point-referenced and areal data, with prediction and diagnostics attached. Block prediction arrived in 0.11.0 and the releases since have refined it. The most recent release changes optimiser behaviour: the default Nelder-Mead relative stopping tolerance tightens from 1e-4 to 1e-6 to reduce convergence on local rather than global maxima.
spatstat.model fits point process models and provides the diagnostics that go with them. The recent window is dominated by determinantal point process work — a variance-covariance matrix and more diagnostics in 3.7-2, additional `intensity` and `repul` methods in 3.7-1, and ROC curves for determinantal models in 3.5-0. Cluster and Cox process inference has advanced in parallel, with Waagepetersen's composite likelihood arriving in 3.6-1.
The pattern is that model classes enter the package as fitting machinery first and only later gain the apparatus that makes them usable in practice — standard errors, diagnostics, residuals, model checking. Determinantal processes are visibly midway through that progression, reaching variance-covariance estimation only in the most recent release. Around this, the package has been broadening where models can be fitted at all: replicated point patterns on linear networks in 3.5-0, extended spatial logistic regression, and conversion of recursively partitioned models to tessellations.
Expect determinantal model support to keep filling out along the same path other model classes took, since variance estimation has only just arrived and partial residuals already exist for the cluster and Cox families. The entries do not signal a move into three dimensions here, unlike the geometry and simulation packages.
spmodel fits spatial linear and generalised linear models, for both point-referenced and areal data, with prediction and diagnostics attached. Block prediction arrived in 0.11.0 and the releases since have refined it. The most recent release changes optimiser behaviour: the default Nelder-Mead relative stopping tolerance tightens from 1e-4 to 1e-6 to reduce convergence on local rather than global maxima.
Two threads run in parallel. The first is expanding what can be predicted — point predictions, then areal averages over a region via block kriging, then better accuracy and efficiency for that path as the block size default moved from 1000 to 4000 in 0.12.0. The second is numerical trustworthiness, and it is unusually prominent here: a range-constraint option for stability in 0.9.0, a corrected log determinant of the fixed effects in the restricted log likelihood in 0.11.0, a cloud semivariogram that had been doubling the semivariance fixed in 0.11.1, and now a tighter optimiser tolerance. Several of these silently changed results before they were caught.
Expect the maintainers to keep publishing explicit reproduction instructions alongside numerical default changes, as 0.13.0 does by documenting the `control = list(reltol = 1e-4)` escape hatch. The entries give no signal of expansion beyond the current model families.
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 spatstat.model or spmodel.
monitOS relicenses to MIT, the clearest signal in a sparse Novartis release feed.
kernelshap makes permutation SHAP practical past eight features, then fixes the kernel weights it had wrong.
filtro moves to S7 and multiplies its feature-scoring methods in a single release.
modeltime.resample exists to keep backtesting working as tidymodels shifts underneath it.
modeltime.ensemble wakes after four years, and the work is all tune 2.0 compatibility.
shapviz refines its SHAP plots release by release while chasing ggplot2's moving target.
See all spatstat.model alternatives → · See all spmodel alternatives →
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
Both compete on the same themes — spatial-statistics, r-package — within Analytics. spatstat.model 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.model 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 spatstat.model alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "spatstat.model alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/spatstat-model for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
Top spmodel alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "spmodel alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/spmodel for the full list with editorial commentary on each.