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A minor release of Density (5.0.3, 21 April 2014) fixes a bug that could cause some points to be dropped from the computation mesh. When 'Trap buffer' is ticked in Options | Computation (the default in 5.0), the mesh used for 2-D integration is clipped to exclude points greater than the 'buffer' radius from any trap. A coding error caused the last trap to be ignored, so the mesh could be smaller than intended. This is unlikely to have more than a trivial effect on estimates unless the buffer radius was too small in the first place. Thanks to Mike Hooker for pointing out the problem.
Murray

Hi all,

I just downloaded Density (5.0.3, 21 April 2014) and am having difficulties having the program read my capture and trap layout data text files that worked without problems using version 5.0.2.1. I am getting the following error message:

Capture file contains record of ID 46 in session 1 with trap ID SII-7 (sample 2) that is not in trap site file.

Here is a snippet of my trap layout data...
#Trap ID, x, y
sii-5 417064 4804338
sii-6 417064 4804323
sii-7 417064 4804306
siii0 416881 4804223
siii1 416897 4804223
siii-1 416862 4804226

...and capture data.
# session, animal ID, occasion, trapID, covariate
1 46 2 sii-7 6
1 46 3 sjj-12
1 46 3 snn-9
1 46 3 sii-6
1 46 4 skk-11
1 46 5 snn-9
1 82 3 sccc1 2
1 82 3 sbbb1
1 153 5 sm11 2
1 161 3 smm-1 4

As you can see, trap sii-7 is in fact in my trap layout file. Any suggestions on how to correct this problem would be appreciated. Thanks!

Eric

Hi Eric

I'm puzzled because the change in 5.0.3 was tiny and confined (?) to that array indexing issue. Unfortunately I can't troubleshoot the code for 3 months - while traveling I don't have access to a Delphi compiler. I suspect using hyphens in the trap labels may be a problem, so maybe try without them.

You can work around your original problem by using 5.0.2 (still available for download). If the bug fixed in 5.0.3 is an issue for you (loss of last trap site when buffering mesh) then you can turn off buffering (uncheck in Options | Computation). For a fuller workaround - you may be able to get 5.0.3 to read your full layout and with a reduced (dummy) capture file; in this case you could use 'Tools | Export | Coordinates of mesh' from 5.0.3 and use 5.0.2, providing the saved mesh in Options | Computation check 'Import from file', with the file name.

Murray

Hi Murray,

Thank you for the speedy reply. Unfortunately, removing hyphens from the data files did not correct the problem. The fuller workaraound you suggested sounds like my best bet. Thanks again!

Cheers,

Eric