[R-pkgs] Calculate wind fetch using fetchR

[Blake Seers]

Dear R users,

I am pleased to announce that the fetchR package is now available on
CRAN, which automatically calculates wind fetch lengths, for any
location(s) around the world.

Wind fetch (or just fetch) is an important calculation in many coastal
and oceanographic applications that require a measure for wind and
wave exposure. The fetchR package exports the `fetch` function that
requires; a (projected) polygon shapefile representing the coastline
and other obstructions to wind; and a points shapefile representing
the location(s) at which the fetch is to be calculated. There are
arguments that allow you to change the maximum distance and number of
directions. Finally, there are plot and kml methods that allow you to
visualise the exposure and export the vectors to a KML file,
respectively. Refer to the vignette for a reproducible example
(https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/fetchR/vignettes/introduction-to-fetchR.html).

Also, check out the shiny application for this R package
(http://windfetch.cer.auckland.ac.nz/). Refer to the 'help' tab to get
started with a reproducible example.

fetchR on CRAN: https://cran.r-project.org/package=fetchR
fetchR on GitHub: https://github.com/blasee/fetchR
bugs, suggestions: https://github.com/blasee/fetchR/issues

Feedback, comments and suggestions are welcomed!

All the best,
Blake

---
Blake Seers  |  PhD candidate
University of Auckland
Dept. of Statistics  |  Inst. of Marine Science
Building 303 Room 361