New Features

Ranges 9

Release date: November 2014

• Resource Area Dependence analysis
• Kaplan-Meier Survival analysis
• An up-to-date look with a more user-friendly interface but without loosing the familiar Ranges feel
• Better data and map split postioning on screen with an adjustable divider to optimise space for each
• Map rendering improvements: both faster and with less artifacts
• Improved map furniture: coordinates, scale bar, zoom and pan controls etc
• Zoom to selection with right mouse button
• Zoom in and out to cursor with mouse scroll button
• Ability to create locations and vector points with CTRL + left mouse click, remove from the end with CTRL + right mouse click
• Improved data charts for utilization and inc files, autocorrelation and interlocation analyses with scaling axes and better labels and headings
• Ability to make map backgrounds paler to make foreground show up better.
• Faster file loading
• Huge file handling including large location files from GPS devices and large raster maps
• Importing locations in latitidue-longitude format
• Exporting to KML using lat-lng
• Location file merging; edge file sampling and merging
• Display locations and analysis maps on Google Maps
• Save maps and plots to image file
• Range overlap analysis map output

Ranges 8

Release date: May 2013

• Ranges for Apple Macintosh

Release date: September 2009

• Curve and hole edge polygons
• Shape selection by clicking on the maps
• Random Subsampling in selections panel

Release date: December 2008

• Faster: all routines now programmed in C++ or Java, 10x faster (no more DOS screens).
• New neighbourhood-Linkage home range method - OREPs
• Features for fish, Midline analyses for distances and ranges along river networks, clipping to exclude bank areas from home ranges
• Copy and paste graphics into other applications
• Animation of location data added to Input & Graphics
• New display options in Input & Graphics, much greater flexibility
• Images can be used as backgrounds in ‘Input & Graphics’
• Map Maker: On-screen digitising to trace images and create maps that can be used in analyses
• Graphics Window: Utilisation, Incremental and inter-location plots now appear in windows that can be resized and printed.
• Limit on number of map colours increased from 15 to 50
• Stats Viewer for viewing results tables generated by Ranges
• Log that keeps a record of all analyses run in a session
• Filter: Ability to save selected locations based on attributes using modify in Input & Graphics
• Random Selector: to select a random number of locations from each individual

Ranges 6

Release date: 2003

• Raster and Vector Shape Background maps
• Import of Idrisi raster files
• ArcView Shapefile import and export. Ranges6 will now import ESRI ArcView shapefiles (either points, lines or shapes) for use in habitat analysis or as background maps. Shapefiles containing points can also be imported as Ranges6 Location files. Ranges6 location files, edge (home range) and vector files can be exported as ESRI shapefiles for display in ArcView or for import to other GIS packages.
• Printing. Ranges6 location, edge, vector and raster files can now be printed directly from the viewing window in Data Entry. This allows you to choose the area for printing by zooming in and out, and to choose different background maps. A title is printed with the filename and for edge files a description of the analysis used to create them.
• Export of files for publication quality figures in Excel. Ranges6 location, edge and vector files can now be exported to text files that can be readily pasted into an Excel workbook which is set up to display any data pasted in. You can then use the flexibility of Excel to modify your figures as required. These figures can then easily be cut and pasted into other applications such as Word.
• Changes and additions to Kernel LSCV calculations. The implementation of Least Squares Cross Validation (LSCV) has been changed slightly based upon our continuing research. This may cause differences in the results produced by this and the previous version. The new version makes it less likely that the method will default to the reference smoothing multiplier of 1. The steps have been changed so that the reference smoothing multiplier will only be used if the method has failed to find an inflection or minimum (and a multiplier of 1.01 or 0.99 indicates that an inflection or minimum has been found very close to 1). For completeness we have added implementations that search for a local or global minimum, although we still recommend use of the method that searches for a local inflection.
• Changed default contour settings for harmonic mean and kernel analyses. The default contouring method is now based on the location density alone, rather than being fitted to locations, because this is thought to be the more robust approach. Similarly for harmonic means the default for location centring has been set to unmodified rather than centred as this is thought to be more robust. The default matrix size for this option has been changed from 40 to 150 to help avoid matrix size dependency.
• Option to set size of matrix cells in Kernel analysis. The option to set the size of matrix cells rather than the number of cells in the matrix has been added.
• Added display options in Data Entry. New options have been added to the map display window in Data Entry. These include displaying vector files in their assigned category colours and displaying location and edge files in range specific colours. Now a greater range of background maps (displayed in grey) can be used, e.g. a location file can be used as a background map for an edge file, to see how a home range estimate relates to the points used to generate it, or an edge file can be used as the background for another edge file to see how different range estimates compare.
• Display of utilisation plots in Data Entry. Utilisation plots for individual ranges can now be displayed and printed from Data Entry.
• GPS sample data To illustrate how Ranges6 can deal with GPS data we have added a file (lion\lions.loc) containing a months worth of data for 3 lions ( ~ 500 locations each) collected in Botswana by Graham Hemson. The helpfiles also contain more information on using location data collected from GPS, and an example of performing dynamic interaction analysis has been added to the tutorial.
• Unlimited numbers of ranges or edge shapes. Now no limits are placed on the numbers of ranges or edge shapes in a single file.
• Identifying the analysis used to create an edge file. We have added two features that make it easier to identify which location analysis was used to create a particular range estimate stored in an edge file. Firstly, when an edge file is opened in Data Entry (as either the primary file or a background map), holding the mouse pointer over the filename will display a description of the analysis used to create the file. Secondly, in Location analyses, default output filenames are created containing codes that enable the precise analysis used to be identified.
• A utility to convert non-integer codes to integers prior to import This enables you to convert columns of non-integer data into columns of integers. This is useful if you have potential range identifiers or location qualifying variables stored as non-integers and allows you to convert them prior to import into Ranges. It also generates a key, so that you can easily see the conversion from your original data to its integer equivalent.
• Raster and Vector shape Background maps: Raster and vector shape files can now be displayed as colour background maps for your location or edge files in Data Entry.