Tools using TRIM software for PECBMS national species indices calculation
RTRIM-shell is a set of three R-scripts developed by Statistics Netherlands, using the RTRIM package to calculate national species indices. Using RTRIM-shell makes it easier to process large batches of data with specific model parameters at once. The user guide is written right in the scripts (especially the first script). Note that the use of covariates is not included in the models. Because of the standardization, we do not plan to include covariates in the future. RTRIM-shell is determined to calculate national species indices sent to the PECBMS coordination unit; therefore, it can be modified to the PECBMS use. Every new update appears under a new number, and the modifications are described right in the script. At the moment is version 2.0 available. We strongly recommend to check the PECBMS webpage or Slack to download the recent RTRIM-shell version, because RTRIM-shell may have changed since your last download. Let’s watch the RTRIM-shell tutorial (see below), which enables us to orientate fast in the RTRIM-shell.
Download the RTRIM-shell version 2.1 here.
Last update: 10th October 2024
We created a commented RTRIM-shell tutorial to speed up understanding of how RTRIM-shell works. Because of the development of RTRIM-shell and other programs, although the tutorial has not been updated recently, we recommend to watch it for understanding the detailled processes and variables. Therefore, it is worth watching the tutorial before the start of RTRIM-shell analyses.
Download the updated RTRIM-shell tutorial here.
Last update: 15th March 2021
Examples in the RTRIM package may be handy for your own analyses. RTRIM package is a new version of the program TRIM, which was rebuilt as an R package for the freely available and widely used open-source statistical program R. Manual, documentation, and help files in the R environment with several programming examples can be found on the CRAN website (Comprehensive R Archive Network). For any questions about the use of RTRIM, please contact rtrim@cbs.nl.
Being developed as R-package, TRIM is made available for further developments by the large R-society. If you are interested in how TRIM was translated to the RTRIM-shell, see more info about TRIM and the website of Statistics Netherlands.
The old version of the program TRIM was originally developed some 25 years ago by Statistics Netherlands (Pannekoek and Van Strien, 1991) and was made available as a stand-alone freeware program. The program has had several updates since then. However, the original programming language (Delphi) has become outdated.
Therefore, TRIM has been developed as an RTRIM package and modified for PECBMS needs into the RTRIM-shell.
The latest version is TRIM 3.54 (released in 2006), designed to run under 32-bits versions of Windows, as Windows98, Windows2000 and WindowsXP.
Warranty Disclaimer: We provide this software and the accompanying documentation „as it is“. Statistics Netherlands disclaims all warranties, either expressed or implied.
You can download TRIM together with a manual, a PowerPoint presentation explaining TRIM for first users, and papers using the TRIM method. Alternatively, you can download TRIM as a part of the program BirdSTATs, which enables us to calculate indices and trends in batch mode to perform the statistical analysis for a series of bird counts in the dataset. Note that the old version of TRIM developed originally in Delphi has been outdated for some time and cannot be updated anymore. Also, BirdSTATs’ outputs are not compatible with the PECBMS programs, and we plan to leave this program shortly. Therefore, we do strongly recommend using the right RTRIM-shell instead.