R Graphics

✍ Scribed by Paul Murrell

• Book ID: 104603016
• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 144 KB
• Volume: 1
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0163-1829
• DOI: 10.1002/wics.22

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

This article describes the graphics facilities of the R language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. There is a brief introduction to basic plotting functions in R, followed by a description of the organisation of R graphics into coherent and consistent sets of graphics functions, plus an indication of what sorts of plots each set of functions can produce. There is also a brief discussion of the limitations of R graphics.

One of the features that draws many users to R1 is the graphics sub‐system. The main features that distinguish R from the many other software systems that can be used to produce plots are that R provides facilities for creating a very wide range of statistical plots, R allows for very fine control over the appearance of plots, and R produces plots that are suitable for professional publication.

This article provides an overview of the basic features of R graphics, along with some simple examples of how to produce plots using R. The general structure and organisation of R graphics is also described to give the reader some indication of how to explore R graphics system further. While some graphical user interfaces exist for R, and some of these provide menu items for producing plots, the only way to make use of the full power of the R graphics system is to write R code, so this article will only address the R code that can be used to produce plots. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

This article is categorized under:

Software for Computational Statistics > Software/Statistical Software