# Spherical data handling and analysis with R package rcosmo

## TL;DR

The paper introduces the R package rcosmo for handling and analyzing spherical data, especially CMB and geographic data, providing practical guidelines and functions for data transformation and statistical analysis.

## Contribution

It presents new methods and R functions for transforming various spherical data types into HEALPix format and demonstrates their statistical analysis capabilities.

## Key findings

- rcosmo effectively handles CMB and geographic data
- Provides practical R code for data transformation and analysis
- Serves as a guideline for spherical data analysis in R

## Abstract

The R package rcosmo was developed for handling and analysing Hierarchical Equal Area isoLatitude Pixelation(HEALPix) and Cosmic Microwave Background(CMB) radiation data. It has more than 100 functions. rcosmo was initially developed for CMB, but also can be used for other spherical data. This paper discusses transformations into rcosmo formats and handling of three types of non-CMB data: continuous geographic, point pattern and star-shaped. For each type of data we provide a brief description of the corresponding statistical model, data example and ready-to-use R code. Some statistical functionality of rcosmo is demonstrated for the example data converted into the HEALPix format. The paper can serve as the first practical guideline to transforming data into the HEALPix format and statistical analysis with rcosmo for geo-statisticians, GIS and R users and researches dealing with spherical data in non-HEALPix formats.