An R binding package for calling Google Earth Engine API from within R, integrating with the R spatial ecosystem.
rgee is an R binding package that provides an interface to Google Earth Engine's API, allowing R users to access and analyze petabyte-scale remote sensing data on Google's cloud infrastructure. It solves the problem of Earth Engine only having official support for JavaScript and Python by bringing full functionality to the R ecosystem for geospatial analysis.
R users in environmental science, geography, ecology, and data science who need to perform large-scale geospatial analysis using satellite imagery and remote sensing data.
Developers choose rgee because it provides the only comprehensive R interface to Google Earth Engine, with seamless integration into R's spatial data workflow and familiar syntax that mirrors Earth Engine's existing APIs.
Google Earth Engine for R
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Integrates directly with popular R spatial packages like sf and stars, as shown in examples using ee_extract to move data into data frames for visualization with ggplot2.
Provides comprehensive access to Google Earth Engine's functionality through an R syntax that mirrors the JavaScript and Python APIs, enabling petabyte-scale data analysis.
Includes specialized functions like ee_extract for efficiently pulling pixel values from Earth Engine images into R data structures, simplifying downstream analysis.
Supports creating maps, animations, and static plots by combining Earth Engine data with R's graphics systems, demonstrated in the NDVI animation example.
Requires multiple steps including Python environment management via reticulate, Google Cloud SDK installation, and authentication, which the README admits can be challenging for new users.
Relies on a Python bridge using reticulate and earthengine-api, introducing potential compatibility issues, performance overhead, and maintenance burdens not present in native clients.
As the README explains, rgee is not a native API but translates requests through Python, which can lead to subtle bugs or incomplete feature parity compared to JavaScript or Python versions.