major update to geomorph

[Adams, Dean [EEOB]]

Colleagues,

 

We wish to announce a major update to geomorph, version 4.1.0, which is now available on CRAN and github.

The primary change is to remove all RGL-based 3D graphics, and replace them with plotly-based graphics. This change was necessitated because under the new MacOS operating system Tahoe, openGL graphics is no longer supported, and the RGL library is no longer maintained on that system. That change has cascaded to geomorph, and has forced us to pivot to other packages for geomorph’s 3D graphics, so that all of our users may retain 3D functionality.

A secondary consequence of this change is that digitizing in geomorph is no longer supported, as it relied on interactive RGL components. While unfortunate, we note that when we released the original version of geomorph fourteen years ago (2012), there were few freeware options available for 3D digitizing. Thus, having these functions available in geomorph served an important community need. Today in 2026 there are numerous options for 3D data collection, including SlicerMorph which is freeware (and frankly quite comprehensive).  As such, the loss of digitizing capabilities within geomorph should be of minimal impact. Nonetheless, for those users with digitizing pipelines that use geomorph, we will add a repository for version 4.0.9 of geomorph on github (on the ‘frozen’ branch), which will retain the RGL-based digitizing functions. This branch and version are considered frozen (and as RGL will no longer work on some OS platforms, its use might require an older Mac OS or other OS).  The geomorph team will not maintain or update this frozen version in any way. We will simply retain it in its current form for any users who wish to use the antiquated digitizing functions.  This version could also be discontinued in the future, pending other R updates that might make it unfunctional.

 

Regardless, we hope that the new 3D graphics via plotly will be suitable for the geomorph community going forward, and we thank you for your patience during this time of transition.

All the best and happy GM-computing!

Dean (on behalf of the geomorph team)

 

Dr. Dean C. Adams

Distinguished Professor

Director, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Graduate Program

Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology

Iowa State University

www.public.iastate.edu/~dcadams/

phone: 515-294-3834