Introduction to Visualization with R

Overview

Teaching: 5 min min
Exercises: 0 min

Questions

• How to visualize data in R

Objectives

• Basic Introductory of plotting system in R

Course content:

• Making exploratory graphs
• Principles of analytic graphics
• Plotting systems and graphics devices in R
• The base, lattice, and ggplot2 plotting systems in R

Exploratory graph

Why do we use graphs in data analysis?

• To understand data properties
• To find patterns in data
• To suggest modeling strategies
• To “debug” analyses
• To communicate results

Ploting System

There are 3 main plotting systems in R:

The Base plotting system

- Start with blank plot and build up the plot
- Plot is just a series of R command
- Flexible

The Lattice plotting system (using package::lattice)

- Plots created using single function call
- Good for putting many plots to screen
- Cannot add to plots once created

The ggplot plotting system (using package::ggplot2)

- Similar to Lattice but easier
- Many default mode
- Flexible between Base and Lattice

Key Points

• R Base plotting system and ggplot