[R-sig-Geo] Extracting polygon information from points with variable buffer distances

[Alastair Potts]

Hi all,

I have a dataset of site locality information with locality confidence
distances (ranging from 0 m to ~10 km). I am trying to intersect these
points with a polygon shape file and extract the polygon information (or
just the polygon id for further extraction), but with the added complexity
of including all those polygons that fall within the locality confidence
distance (i.e. a buffer).

I am a familiar with R, but not so much the spatial libraries. I have spent
quite a while looking around on RSeek, and Google, but nothing I find is
quite right. What I would appreciate is any pointers to functions that
could help me with the above scenario. I can probably figure it out from
there.

What I have put my efforts into:
I initially thought that extract() would work, but this appears to only be
for rasters.
I have been trying to use gBuffer() as an initial step prior to using the
over() function, but I can't get gBuffer to operate in the meters (or
kilometres) as the polyshape is projected using WGS84 and lat/long units.
(any suggestions here).

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,
Alastair

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