Merge RLum.Data objects

This function allows to merge RLum.Data.Curve and RLum.Data.Spectrum objects in different ways without modifying the original objects. For RLum.Data.Curve objects, merging is always applied on the 2nd column of the object's data matrix.

Supported merge operations are:

"mean" (default)

The mean over the count/cell values is calculated using rowMeans.

"median"

The median over the count/cell values is calculated using matrixStats::rowMedians.

"sum"

All count/cell values will be summed up using rowSums.

"sd"

The standard deviation over the count/cell values is calculated using matrixStats::rowSds.

"var"

The variance over the count/cell values is calculated using matrixStats::rowVars.

"min"

The min values from the count/cell values is calculated using matrixStats::rowMins.

"max"

The max values from the count/cell values is calculated using matrixStats::rowMins.

"append"

Appends count/cell values of all objects to one combined data object. The channel width is automatically re-calculated, but requires a constant channel width of the original data. Note: for RLum.Data.Spectrum objects, this method is only available when all objects have the same number of columns.

"-"

The row sums of the last objects are subtracted from the first object.

"*"

The row sums of the last objects are multiplied with the first object.

"/"

Values of the first object are divided by row sums of the last objects.

Usage

merge_RLum.Data.Curve(
  object,
  merge.method = c("mean", "median", "sum", "sd", "var", "max", "min", "append", "-",
    "*", "/"),
  method.info = NULL,
  ...
)

merge_RLum.Data.Spectrum(
  object,
  merge.method = c("mean", "median", "sum", "sd", "var", "min", "max", "append", "-",
    "*", "/"),
  method.info = NULL,
  max.temp.diff = 0.1,
  ...
)

Arguments

object: list of RLum.Data.Curve or RLum.Data.Spectrum (required): list of objects to be merged.
merge.method: character (required): method for combining of the objects, e.g. 'mean' (default), 'median', 'sum', see details for further information and allowed methods.
method.info: numeric (optional): allows to specify how info elements of the input objects are combined, e.g. 1 means that just the elements from the first object are kept, 2 keeps only the info elements from the 2 object etc. If set to NULL (default), all elements are combined.
...: currently not used.
max.temp.diff: numeric (with default): maximum difference in the time/temperature values between the spectra to be merged: when differences exceed this threshold value, the merging occurs but a warning is raised. Only used for RLum.Data.Spectrum objects.

Value

Returns an RLum.Data.Curve or RLum.Data.Spectrum object, depending on the input.

Note

The information from the slot recordType is taken from the first object in the input list. The slot 'curveType' is filled with the name merged.

S3-generic support

These functions are fully operational via S3-generics: +, -, /, *, merge

Function version

0.2.3

Author

Sebastian Kreutzer, F2.1 Geophysical Parametrisation/Regionalisation, LIAG - Institute for Applied Geophysics (Germany)
Marco Colombo, Institute of Geography, Heidelberg University (Germany)
, RLum Developer Team

How to cite

Kreutzer, S., Colombo, M., 2026. merge_RLum.Data.Curve(): Merge RLum.Data objects. Function version 0.2.3. In: Kreutzer, S., Burow, C., Dietze, M., Fuchs, M.C., Schmidt, C., Fischer, M., Friedrich, J., Mercier, N., Philippe, A., Riedesel, S., Autzen, M., Mittelstrass, D., Gray, H.J., Galharret, J., Colombo, M., Steinbuch, L., de Boer, A., Bluszcz, A., 2026. Luminescence: Comprehensive Luminescence Dating Data Analysis. R package version 1.3.1. https://r-lum.github.io/Luminescence/

Examples


## load example data
data(ExampleData.XSYG, envir = environment())

## grep first and third TL curves
TL.curves  <- get_RLum(OSL.SARMeasurement$Sequence.Object, recordType = "TL (UVVIS)")
TL.curve.1 <- TL.curves[[1]]
TL.curve.3 <- TL.curves[[3]]

## plot single curves
plot_RLum(TL.curve.1)

plot_RLum(TL.curve.3)


## subtract the 1st curve from the 3rd and plot
TL.curve.merged <- merge_RLum.Data.Curve(list(TL.curve.3, TL.curve.1),
                                         merge.method = "/")
#> Warning: [merge_RLum.Data.Curve()] 8 'Inf' values replaced by 0 in the matrix
plot_RLum(TL.curve.merged)