APACK: an analysis package for rapid calculation of landscape
metrics on large scale data sets
General Information
Landscape ecologists rely on landscape metrics to compare landscapes, evaluate
temporal changes, and predict landscape pattern effects. Programs that analyze
large data sets in an efficient manner are needed. Our objective was to develop
a computationally efficient program to calculate landscape metrics. APACK is an
analysis package designed to meet these needs. It is a standalone program written
in C++ that calculates landscape metrics on raster files. It runs on the Windows
95/98/NT/2000/XP platforms. Data formats supported include ERDAS GIS files and
ASCII files. Output data consists of a text file and a spreadsheet readable file
that can be further analyzed. APACK can calculate 25 metrics useful for determining
landscape characteristics such as basic measures (e.g., area), information theoretic
measures (e.g., diversity), shape measures (e.g., fractal dimension), textural
measures (e.g., lacunarity), probabilistic measures (e.g., electivity), and
structural measures (e.g., connectivity). In tests versus other commonly used
analysis packages APACK was able to calculate upon larger maps and was significantly
faster. This is in part due to APACK only calculating those metrics specified by the
user. APACK fills the need for an analysis package that can easily and efficiently
calculate landscape metrics from large raster maps.
For a more detailed overview of APACK and its ability to outperform another commonly
used analysis package you can get the comparison in PowerPoint
97 format.
Note that APACK continues to be freely available but is no longer under development.
It has been supplanted by
IAN. You can get the latest version of APACK along with complete documentation by
visiting FLEL's
APACK registration page.
Contact Information
For any questions regarding APACK please send email to
apack-mail@wisc.edu