CGAL tools: is there an interface to CGAL, or equivalent toolset in R?

Question

I'm starting to learn about dealing with complex vs simple polygons, determining whether points are inside/outside polygons, etc. (e.g. http://geomalgorithms.com/a09-_intersect-3.html and related pages). I was hoping to find an R package that provides implementations of the Bentley-Ottmann algorithm, winding number, edge-crossing, and so on.

Alternatively, is there an R interface to the CGAL library or similar toolset? Is Rcpp the best (or only) way to go about this?

Answer 1

The nearest thing is probably package:rgeos. Meant for geospatial applications, polygon overlay, buffering, intersections etc.

A wrap of CGAL would be very interesting. However, I have a vague feeling there may be licensing issues... Its partly LGPL and partly GPL, but if you don't want to comply with those licenses you can buy a commercial license.

Answer 2

There are CGAL SWIG bindings: http://code.google.com/p/cgal-bindings/ and SWIG supports R, so it should work, but I don't know if it has been tried.