get coordinates of a patch in a raster map (raster package in R)

Question

I have a raster map with many patches (clumps of continguous cells with the same value). What I need to do is to obtain the coordinates of the center (or close to the center) of each patch. I am very unexperienced with raster package but it seems I can get coordinates only if I know the position of the cells in the map. Is there any way to get coordinates giving a value of the cells instead? Thank you

Answer 1

You could take the mean of the coordinates of each patch:

# some dummy data
m <- matrix(c(
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,4,4,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,4,4,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,4,4,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,
    0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,2,3,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,2,3,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), nrow=20, byrow=T)

# create a raster
r <- raster(m)

# convert raster to points
p <- data.frame(rasterToPoints(r))

# filter out packground
p <- p[p$layer > 0,]

# for each patch calc mean coordinates
sapply(split(p[, c("x", "y")], p$layer), colMeans)