Hi Rainer, In a similar situation I used the two components of the normal vector of the surface ("northing" & "easting"). I.e. for a horizontal plane both are 0, for a vertical slope facing south northing=-1and easting=0, etc. This descartian decomposition of the slope vector avoids the problem of circularity present in the widespreadly used polar (aspect, slope) decomposition, and thus seems to suit ecological problems much better to me. However I have not looked into this much, I am also very interested in the opinion of others.
Bálint On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 11:35 AM, Rainer M Krug <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi > > I am planning to use a CART analysis with rpart() to analyse the > impact of, among others, slope, altitude and aspect on mortality > rates. > My question is: > Is there a p[roblem with using aspect as a predictor as it is circular? > And if it is a problem (which I suspect), is there a transformation I > could use to transform aspect? > > Thanks > > Rainer > > -- > Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation > Biology, UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany) > > Plant Conservation Unit > Department of Botany > University of Cape Town > Rondebosch 7701 > South Africa > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > -- Bálint Czúcz Institute of Ecology and Botany of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences H-2163 Vácrátót, Alkotmány u. 2-4. HUNGARY Tel: +36 28 360122/157 +36 70 7034692 ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.