Response-Surface Methods in R, Using rsm

Abstract

This article describes the recent package rsm, which was designed to provide R support for standard response-surface methods. Functions are provided to generate central-composite and Box-Behnken designs. For analysis of the resulting data, the package provides for estimating the response surface, testing its lack of fit, displaying an ensemble of contour plots of the fitted surface, and doing follow-up analyses such as steepest ascent, canonical analysis, and ridge analysis. It also implements a coded-data structure to aid in this essential aspect of the methodology. The functions are designed in hopes of providing an intuitive and effective user interface. Potential exists for expanding the package in a variety of ways.