Rraven: connecting R and Raven sound analysis software

Rraven sticker

The Rraven package is designed to facilitate the exchange of data between R and Raven sound analysis software (Cornell Lab of Ornithology). Raven provides very powerful tools for the analysis of (animal) sounds. R can simplify the automatization of complex routines of analyses. Furthermore, R packages as warbleR, seewave and monitoR (among others) provide additional methods of analysis, working as a perfect complement for those found in Raven. Hence, bridging these applications can largely expand the bioacoustician’s toolkit.

Currently, most analyses in Raven cannot be run in the background from a command terminal. Thus, most Rraven functions are design to simplify the exchange of data between the two programs.

Install/load the package from CRAN as follows:

# From CRAN 
install.packages("Rraven")

#load package
library(Rraven)

To install the latest developmental version from github you will need the R package remotes:

# From github
remotes::install_github("maRce10/Rraven")

#load package
library(Rraven)

The package vignette provides detailed examples for each function in Rraven, including both the R code as well as the additional steps in Raven required to fully accomplished the analyses. You can pull it up as follows:

vignette("Rraven")

The animations explaining additional steps in Raven are shown in more detail on the github version of this vignette, which can be downloaded as follows (saves the file “Rraven.github.html” in your current working directory):

download.file(url = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/maRce10/Rraven/master/gifs/Rraven.hitgub.html", 
destfile = "Rraven.hitgub.html")

The downloaded file can be opened by any internet browser.


Please cite Rraven as follows:

Araya-Salas. (2020), Rraven: connecting R and Raven bioacoustic software. R package version 1.0.9.

Marcelo Araya-Salas
Marcelo Araya-Salas
Research Associate

My research interests include evolutionary behavioral ecology, cultural evolution, scientific programming and all possible combinations of them.