Variable importance using the caret package (error); RandomForest algorithm

Question

I am trying to obtain the variable importance of a rf model in any way. This is the approach I have tried so far, but alternate suggestions are very welcome.

I have

Answer 1

The importance scores can take a while to compute and train won't automatically get randomForest to create them. Add importance = TRUE to the train call and it should work.

Max

Answer 2

That is becouse the obtained from train() object is not a pure Random Forest model, but a list of different objects (containing the final model itself as well as cross-validation results etc). You may see them with ls(model2). So to use the final model just call varImp(model2$finalModel) .