vismeteor 3.0.0

New features

• select_knots() performs forward/backward stepwise selection of spline knots from a candidate set, scoring each fit with a user-supplied function (e.g. AIC/BIC). Backward selection supports a “bulk removal” mode, and scoring can run in parallel via the parallel package. See ?select_knots and vignette("select_knots").

Breaking changes

Naming overhaul (snake_case)

All public identifiers were migrated from dotted / camelCase to snake_case to match the tidyverse / r-lib convention and to remove visual confusion with S3 dispatch (print.foo). This affects exported functions, function parameters, and data.frame columns returned by load_vmdb_*() and the example datasets PER_2015_rates / PER_2015_magn (which were regenerated).

The d/p/q/r distribution prefixes (dvmgeom, pvmideal, …) are unchanged, and lower.tail is preserved to match base R conventions.

Renamed exported functions:

Renamed parameters: lim.magn, magn.id, rate.id, session.id, perception.fun, sun.alt.max, moon.alt.max, deriv.degree, withSessions, withMagnitudes → their snake_case forms.

Closer alignment with the imo-vmdb API

The imo-vmdb API already uses snake_case, so column remapping is reduced to a few semantic renames: id → rate_id / magn_id / session_id (so foreign keys in the same data frame stay unambiguous) and mean → magn_mean (to avoid shadowing base R mean()). Three columns that previously carried R-specific names now pass through unchanged from the API:

Other breaking changes

• perception_fun now defaults to vmperception instead of NULL with an internal fallback. Callers that explicitly passed perception.fun = NULL must drop the argument or supply a function.
• vmperception(m) is now vmperception(dm) — the parameter is the difference between the limiting magnitude and the meteor magnitude, and the new name reflects that. Positional calls remain compatible.

Migration

A sed sweep of your scripts is usually sufficient:

sed -i '' -E '
  s/\bfreq\.quantile\b/freq_quantile/g;
  s/\bvmgeomVstFromMagn\b/vmgeom_vst_from_magn/g;
  s/\bvmgeomVstToR\b/vmgeom_vst_to_r/g;
  s/\bvmidealVstFromMagn\b/vmideal_vst_from_magn/g;
  s/\bvmidealVstToPsi\b/vmideal_vst_to_psi/g;
  s/\blim\.magn\b/lim_magn/g;
  s/\bmagn\.id\b/magn_id/g;
  s/\brate\.id\b/rate_id/g;
  s/\bsession\.id\b/session_id/g;
  s/\bperception\.fun\b/perception_fun/g;
  s/\bderiv\.degree\b/deriv_degree/g;
  s/\bwithSessions\b/with_sessions/g;
  s/\bwithMagnitudes\b/with_magnitudes/g;
  s/\bshower\.code\b/shower/g;
  s/\bperiod\.start\b/period_start/g;
  s/\bperiod\.end\b/period_end/g;
  s/\bsl\.start\b/sl_start/g;
  s/\bsl\.end\b/sl_end/g;
  s/\bt\.eff\b/t_eff/g;
  s/\btime\.sidereal\b/sidereal_time/g;
  s/\bsun\.alt\b/sun_alt/g;
  s/\bsun\.az\b/sun_az/g;
  s/\bmoon\.alt\b/moon_alt/g;
  s/\bmoon\.az\b/moon_az/g;
  s/\bmoon\.illum\b/moon_illum/g;
  s/\bfield\.alt\b/field_alt/g;
  s/\bfield\.az\b/field_az/g;
  s/\bradiant\.alt\b/rad_alt/g;
  s/\bradiant\.az\b/rad_az/g;
  s/\bmagn\.mean\b/magn_mean/g;
  s/\blocation\.name\b/location_name/g;
  s/\bobserver\.id\b/observer_id/g;
  s/\bobserver\.name\b/observer_name/g;
' your-script.R

vismeteor 2.1.0

Breaking changes

• load_vmdb_rates() and load_vmdb_magnitudes() now connect to an imo-vmdb REST API instead of a direct database connection.
• Multi-range filters for period, sl, and lim_magn (previously a matrix with multiple rows that were OR-joined) are no longer supported. Each filter is collapsed to a single bounding min/max. Use multiple calls combined with rbind() if disjoint ranges are needed.
• Minimum R version raised to 4.1.0 (was 3.5.0) due to use of the native pipe operator |> and \().

vismeteor 2.0.2

Changes

• Clarified documentation and vignettes for vmgeom and vmideal models, including improved mathematical notation and explanations.
• Hidden internal parameters from exported function documentation to reduce user confusion.

vismeteor 2.0.1

Changes

• Updated README guidance, vignettes, and roxygen references to clarify data sources, models, and to correct documentation errors.
• Improved the performance of vmgeom_vst_from_magn() and vmideal_vst_from_magn() by tightening the interpolation steps used during the variance-stabilising transforms.
• Streamlined the vmtable() rounding routine to reduce allocations.
• Added a GitHub Actions workflow to run package checks automatically.
• Documented the derivation scripts in inst/derivation/ to improve reproducibility.
• Added load_vmdb() regression tests.

vismeteor 2.0.0

Highlights

This release introduces variance-stabilizing transformations for the ideal distribution of visual meteor magnitudes (vmideal_vst_from_magn()) as well as for visual meteor magnitudes under a geometric distribution (vmgeom_vst_from_magn()).

Other changes

The function vmperception() now better matches the perception probabilities of Koschack & Rendtel (1990b).
The argument deriv_degree has been removed, as it was only intended for internal testing and had no practical relevance for regular use.

Laplace-transformed perception probabilities have been replaced by variance-stabilizing transformations, which also means that the function vmperception.l() has been removed.

Note: This release includes breaking changes and is not fully backward compatible due to the removal of parameters and functions.

vismeteor 1.8.5

• Initial CRAN release