This package is developed during the Advanced GIS course which is an regular course within the MSc Environmental Geography at Marburg University. Actually there was a need for a straightforward example of spatial thinking & GI science. This was combined with a typical all days spatial problem. What is the background? Christian Rauch has written an article in the magazine of the German Alpine Club to give a solution of this burning problem of most of the mountaineers.
The basic idea of the article is, that one is able to calculate a so called value of independence (Eigenstaendigkeit) for any mountain or summit. This results in a rank list of perfect peaks. In the beginning it seems to be a pretty simple question, but step by step it turns out into a almost arbitrarily complex spatial problem. And very suitable for our needs it is not charged with any scientific claims. So we will start and try to understand the problem.
Obviously the perfectPeak package is implemented in R. Nevertheless it is neither written as an generic R package nor it want's to be a course in scripting techniques. If one focus it technically, it is an example of how to use R for the integration of GIS functionality from external software and Desktop GIS. It shows commandline and API calls as well as the powerful integration of some major spatial R wrapper packages.
But more likely it is the attempt to support non programmers diving into spatial thinking and getting a straightforward but nevertheless effective approach to implement and apply their concepts using the advanced capabilities of the great and growing GI open source software that is available out there.
Find further information at:
Marburg Open Courseware - Advanced GIS
Rauch. C. (2012): Der perfekte Gipfel. Panorama, 2/2012, S. 112.