M-estimators of location and shape following the power family 
    (Frahm, Nordhausen, Oja (2020) <doi:10.1016/j.jmva.2019.104569>) are 
    provided in the case of complete data and also when observations have 
    missing values together with functions aiding their visualization.

This is an evolving and growing collection of tools for the quantification, assessment, and comparison of shape and pattern. This collection provides tools for: (1) the spatial decomposition of planar shapes using 'ShrinkShape' to incrementally shrink shapes to extinction while computing area, perimeter, and number of parts at each iteration of shrinking; the spectra of results are returned in graphic and tabular formats (Remmel 2015) <doi:10.1111/cag.12222>, (2) simulating landscape patterns, (3) provision of tools for estimating composition and configuration parameters from a categorical (binary) landscape map (grid) and then simulates a selected number of statistically similar landscapes. Class-focused pattern metrics are computed for each simulated map to produce empirical distributions against which statistical comparisons can be made. The code permits the analysis of single maps or pairs of maps (Remmel and Fortin 2013) <doi:10.1007/s10980-013-9905-x>, (4) counting the number of each first-order pattern element and converting that information into both frequency and empirical probability vectors (Remmel 2020) <doi:10.3390/e22040420>, and (5) computing the porosity of raster patches <doi:10.3390/su10103413>. NOTE: This is a consolidation of existing packages ('PatternClass', 'ShapePattern') to begin warehousing all shape and pattern code in a common package. Additional utility tools for handling data are provided and this package will be added to as more tools are created, cleaned-up, and documented.  Note that all future developments will appear in this package and that 'PatternClass' will eventually be archived.

Studies otolith shape variation among fish populations.
  Otoliths are calcified structures found in the inner ear of teleost fish and their shape has
  been known to vary among several fish populations and stocks, making them very useful in taxonomy,
  species identification and to study geographic variations. The package extends previously described
  software used for otolith shape analysis by allowing the user to automatically extract closed
  contour outlines from a large number of images, perform smoothing to eliminate pixel noise described in Haines and Crampton (2000) <doi:10.1111/1475-4983.00148>,
  choose from conducting either a Fourier or wavelet see Gençay et al (2001) <doi:10.1016/S0378-4371(00)00463-5> transform to the outlines and visualize
  the mean shape. The output of the package are independent Fourier or wavelet coefficients
  which can be directly imported into a wide range of statistical packages in R. The package
  might prove useful in studies of any two dimensional objects.