plot2
What
A lightweight extension of the base R graphics system, with support for automatic grouping, legends, facets and various other enhancements.
plot2 is not yet on CRAN, but can be installed from R-universe.
install.packages("plot2", repos = "https://grantmcdermott.r-universe.dev")Our goal is to submit to CRAN within the first few months of 2024, once we have settled on some remaining design choices and features support. You can take a look at the open issues to see what’s currently under consideration. Please feel free to weigh on these if you have opinions. We want end users to have a say in determining the final product.
Why
R users are spoiled for choice when it comes to visualization frameworks. The options include ggplot2 (arguably the most important graphics system of the last decade) and lattice, not to mention a bewildering array of extensions built around, on top of, and in between these amazing packages.
As a result, it is perhaps not surprising that the base R graphics
system sometimes gets short shrift. This is unfortunate, because base R
offers very powerful and flexible plotting facilities. Just type
demo(graphics) or demo(persp) into your R console to get an idea.
Or, take a look at
these
two
excellent tutorials. The downside of this power and flexibility is that
base R plotting can require a fair bit of manual tinkering. A case in
point is plotting grouped data with an appropriate legend. Doing so with
the generic plot() function can require several function calls or a
loop, fiddling with your plot regions, and then generating the legend
manually.
The plot2 package aims to remove this overhead. It provides a
lightweight (zero dependency) extension of the base R graphics system
with various convenience features, particularly for representing groups
with your data. For example, the core plot2() function makes it easy
to plot different categories of a dataset in a single function call and
highlight these categories (groups) using modern colour palettes.
Coincident with this grouping support, plot2() also produces automatic
legends with scope for further customization. While the package offers
several other enhancements like facets, it tries as far as possible to
be a drop-in replacement for the equivalent base plot function. Users
should generally be able to swap a valid plot() call with plot2()
without any changes to the expected output.
Quickstart
The plot2 website includes a detailed introductory tutorial, with numerous examples. But here are some quickstart examples of the package in action.
library(plot2)Grouped scatterplot with automatic legend:
# with(iris, plot2(x = Petal.Length, y = Sepal.Length, by = Species)) # atomic
plot2(Sepal.Length ~ Petal.Length | Species, data = iris) # formula
Same plot with a few extra aesthetic tweaks:
plot2(
Sepal.Length ~ Petal.Length | Species,
data = iris,
palette = "dark", pch = 16,
grid = TRUE, frame = FALSE
)
Grouped grouped density plot with automatic legend:
plot2(
~ Petal.Length | Species,
data = iris,
type = "density",
palette = "dark", fill = "by",
grid = TRUE,
main = "Distribution of petal lengths by species"
)
Grouped scatterplot, combined with facet layout:
iris2 = transform(iris, Sepals = ifelse(Sepal.Length>6, "Long", "Short"))
plot2(
Sepal.Length ~ Petal.Length | Sepals, data = iris2,
facet = ~Species,
facet.args = list(bg = "grey90"),
palette = "classic",
main = "Faceted Sepals!",
grid = TRUE, frame = FALSE
)
Hopefully, these have been enough to pique your interest. Head over to the intro tutorial for many more examples, including range plots and customization.