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Merge multiple simulation outputs

Source: R/fct_main.R
md_merge.Rd

Pools two or more md_run() outputs into a single movedesign_processed object by concatenating all simulated individuals, fitted models, and seeds. The merged object behaves exactly as if all individuals had been simulated in one call: if each input contains 5 individuals, the merged output contains 10.

The distinction from md_stack() is important. md_merge() treats all inputs as parts of one larger dataset; replicate identity is lost and individual counts accumulate. md_stack() instead assigns a replicate ID to each md_run() output and aggregates population-level inference across them, keeping each run as a separate replicate.

Call md_merge() directly only when you have run md_run() separately and need to pool the raw outputs before downstream analyses.

Usage

md_merge(x, ...)

Arguments

x

Either a list of movedesign_processed objects, or the first of multiple objects passed individually. All objects must share the same set_target and sampling parameters.

...

Reserved for internal use.

Value

A single movedesign_output object that contains all merged simulation outputs and inherits metadata from the first input object.

Details

Before merging, all inputs are checked for consistent metadata (e.g. dur, dti, set_target). Movement timescale parameters (tau_p, tau_v) are compared after rounding to one decimal place, to tolerate minor numerical differences arising from separate model fitting runs. If any field mismatches are found, the function stops with an informative message listing the affected fields.

See also

md_prepare, md_run

Examples

if (interactive()) {

  data(buffalo)
  input <- md_prepare(
    data = buffalo,
    models = models,
    species = "buffalo",
    n_individuals = 5,
    dur = list(value = 1, unit = "month"),
    dti = list(value = 1, unit = "day"),
    add_individual_variation = FALSE,
    set_target = "hr",
    which_meta = "mean")

  output1 <- md_run(input)
  output2 <- md_run(input)

  # Both of the following are equivalent:

  md_merge(output1, output2)
  md_merge(list(output1, output2))
  
}