Help topics

Geoms

Geoms, short for geometric objects, describe the type of plot you will produce.

• geom_abline
  Line specified by slope and intercept.
• geom_area
  Area plot.
• geom_bar
  Bars, rectangles with bases on x-axis
• geom_bin2d
  Add heatmap of 2d bin counts.
• geom_blank
  Blank, draws nothing.
• geom_boxplot
  Box and whiskers plot.
• geom_contour
  Display contours of a 3d surface in 2d.
• geom_crossbar
  Hollow bar with middle indicated by horizontal line.
• geom_density
  Display a smooth density estimate.
• geom_density2d
  Contours from a 2d density estimate.
• geom_dotplot
  Dot plot
• geom_errorbar
  Error bars.
• geom_errorbarh
  Horizontal error bars
• geom_freqpoly
  Frequency polygon.
• geom_hex
  Hexagon bining.
• geom_histogram
  Histogram
• geom_hline
  Horizontal line.
• geom_jitter
  Points, jittered to reduce overplotting.
• geom_line
  Connect observations, ordered by x value.
• geom_linerange
  An interval represented by a vertical line.
• geom_map
  Polygons from a reference map.
• geom_path
  Connect observations in original order
• geom_point
  Points, as for a scatterplot
• geom_pointrange
  An interval represented by a vertical line, with a point in the middle.
• geom_polygon
  Polygon, a filled path.
• geom_quantile
  Add quantile lines from a quantile regression.
• geom_raster
  High-performance rectangular tiling.
• geom_rect
  2d rectangles.
• geom_ribbon
  Ribbons, y range with continuous x values.
• geom_rug
  Marginal rug plots.
• geom_segment
  Single line segments.
• geom_smooth
  Add a smoothed conditional mean.
• geom_step
  Connect observations by stairs.
• geom_text
  Textual annotations.
• geom_tile
  Tile plane with rectangles.
• geom_violin
  Violin plot.
• geom_vline
  Line, vertical.

Statistics

It's often useful to transform your data before plotting, and that's what statistical transformations do.

• stat_bin
  Bin data.
• stat_bin2d
  Count number of observation in rectangular bins.
• stat_bindot
  Bin data for dot plot.
• stat_binhex
  Bin 2d plane into hexagons.
• stat_boxplot
  Calculate components of box and whisker plot.
• stat_contour
  Calculate contours of 3d data.
• stat_density
  1d kernel density estimate.
• stat_density2d
  2d density estimation.
• stat_ecdf
  Empirical Cumulative Density Function
• stat_function
  Superimpose a function.
• stat_identity
  Identity statistic.
• stat_qq
  Calculation for quantile-quantile plot.
• stat_quantile
  Continuous quantiles.
• stat_smooth
  Add a smoother.
• stat_spoke
  Convert angle and radius to xend and yend.
• stat_sum
  Sum unique values. Useful for overplotting on scatterplots.
• stat_summary
  Summarise y values at every unique x.
• stat_summary_hex
  Apply funciton for 2D hexagonal bins.
• stat_summary2d
  Apply funciton for 2D rectangular bins.
• stat_unique
  Remove duplicates.
• stat_ydensity
  1d kernel density estimate along y axis, for violin plot.

Scales

Scales control the mapping between data and aesthetics.

• expand_limits
  Expand the plot limits with data.
• guides
  Set guides for each scale.
• guide_legend
  Legend guide.
• guide_colourbar(guide_colorbar)
  Contiuous colour bar guide.
• scale_alpha(scale_alpha_continuous, scale_alpha_discrete)
  Alpha scales.
• scale_area
  Scale area instead of radius (for size).
• scale_colour_brewer(scale_color_brewer, scale_fill_brewer)
  Sequential, diverging and qualitative colour scales from colorbrewer.org
• scale_colour_gradient(scale_color_continuous, scale_color_gradient, scale_colour_continuous, scale_fill_continuous, scale_fill_gradient)
  Smooth gradient between two colours
• scale_colour_gradient2(scale_color_gradient2, scale_fill_gradient2)
  Diverging colour gradient
• scale_colour_gradientn(scale_color_gradientn, scale_fill_gradientn)
  Smooth colour gradient between n colours
• scale_colour_grey(scale_color_grey, scale_fill_grey)
  Sequential grey colour scale.
• scale_colour_hue(scale_color_discrete, scale_color_hue, scale_colour_discrete, scale_fill_discrete, scale_fill_hue)
  Qualitative colour scale with evenly spaced hues.
• scale_identity(scale_alpha_identity, scale_color_identity, scale_colour_identity, scale_fill_identity, scale_linetype_identity, scale_shape_identity, scale_size_identity)
  Use values without scaling.
• scale_manual(scale_alpha_manual, scale_color_manual, scale_colour_manual, scale_fill_manual, scale_linetype_manual, scale_shape_manual, scale_size_manual)
  Create your own discrete scale.
• scale_linetype(scale_linetype_continuous, scale_linetype_discrete)
  Scale for line patterns.
• scale_shape(scale_shape_continuous, scale_shape_discrete)
  Scale for shapes, aka glyphs.
• scale_size(scale_size_continuous, scale_size_discrete)
  Size scale.
• scale_x_continuous(scale_x_log10, scale_x_reverse, scale_x_sqrt, scale_y_continuous, scale_y_log10, scale_y_reverse, scale_y_sqrt)
  Continuous position scales (x & y).
• scale_x_date(scale_y_date)
  Position scale, date
• scale_x_datetime(scale_y_datetime)
  Position scale, date
• scale_x_discrete(scale_y_discrete)
  Discrete position.
• labs(ggtitle, xlab, ylab)
  Change axis labels and legend titles
• update_labels
  Update axis/legend labels
• xlim(ylim)
  Convenience functions to set the limits of the x and y axis.

Coordinate systems

Coordinate systems adjust the mapping from coordinates to the 2d plane of the computer screen.

• coord_cartesian
  Cartesian coordinates.
• coord_fixed(coord_equal)
  Cartesian coordinates with fixed relationship between x and y scales.
• coord_flip
  Flipped cartesian coordinates.
• coord_map
  Map projections.
• coord_polar
  Polar coordinates.
• coord_trans
  Transformed cartesian coordinate system.

Faceting

Facets display subsets of the dataset in different panels.

• facet_grid
  Lay out panels in a grid.
• facet_null
  Facet specification: a single panel.
• facet_wrap
  Wrap a 1d ribbon of panels into 2d.
• label_both
  Label facets with value and variable.
• label_bquote
  Label facet with 'bquoted' expressions
• label_parsed
  Label facets with parsed label.
• label_value
  Label facets with their value.

Position adjustments

Position adjustments can be used to fine tune positioning of objects to achieve effects like dodging, jittering and stacking.

• position_dodge
  Adjust position by dodging overlaps to the side.
• position_fill
  Stack overlapping objects on top of one another, and standardise to have
• position_identity
  Don't adjust position
• position_stack
  Stack overlapping objects on top of one another.
• position_jitter
  Jitter points to avoid overplotting.

Data

Data sets included in ggplot2 and used in examples

• diamonds
  Prices of 50,000 round cut diamonds
• economics
  US economic time series.
• midwest
  Midwest demographics.
• movies
  Movie information and user ratings from IMDB.com.
• mpg
  Fuel economy data from 1999 and 2008 for 38 popular models of car
• msleep
  An updated and expanded version of the mammals sleep dataset.
• presidential
  Terms of 10 presidents from Eisenhower to Bush W.
• seals
  Vector field of seal movements.

Anotation

Specialised functions for adding annotations to a plot

• annotate
  Create an annotation layer.
• annotation_custom
  Annotation: Custom grob.
• annotation_logticks
  Annotation: log tick marks
• annotation_map
  Annotation: maps.
• annotation_raster
  Annotation: High-performance rectangular tiling.
• borders
  Create a layer of map borders.

Fortify

Fortify methods make it possible to use ggplot2 with objects of various types, not just data frames.

• fortify
  Fortify a model with data.
• fortify-multcomp(fortify.cld, fortify.confint.glht, fortify.glht, fortify.summary.glht)
  Fortify methods for objects produced by
• fortify.lm
  Supplement the data fitted to a linear model with model fit statistics.
• fortify.map
  Fortify method for map objects.
• fortify.sp(fortify.Line, fortify.Lines, fortify.Polygon, fortify.Polygons, fortify.SpatialLinesDataFrame, fortify.SpatialPolygons, fortify.SpatialPolygonsDataFrame)
  Fortify method for classes from the sp package.
• map_data
  Create a data frame of map data.

Themes

Themes control non-data components of the plot

• add_theme
  Modify properties of an element in a theme object
• calc_element
  Calculate the element properties, by inheriting properties from its parents
• element_blank
  Theme element: blank.
• element_line
  Theme element: line.
• element_rect
  Theme element: rectangle.
• element_text
  Theme element: text.
• is.rel
  Reports whether x is a rel object
• is.theme
  Reports whether x is a theme object
• opts
  Build a theme (or partial theme) from theme elements
• rel
  Relative sizing for theme elements
• theme
  Set theme elements
• theme_bw
  A theme with white background and black gridlines.
• theme_grey(theme_gray)
  A theme with grey background and white gridlines.
• theme_update(theme_get, theme_set)
  Get, set and update themes.
• update_element
  Update theme param

Plot creation

• ggplot
  Create a new ggplot plot
• qplot(quickplot)
  Quick plot
• +.gg(%+%, %+replace%)
  Modify a ggplot or theme object by adding on new components.
• autoplot
  Create a complete ggplot appropriate to a particular data type
• ggplot.data.frame
  Create a new ggplot plot from a data frame
• is.ggplot
  Reports whether x is a ggplot object
• print.ggplot(plot.ggplot)
  Draw plot on current graphics device.

Aesthetics

• aes
  Generate aesthetic mappings that describe how variables in the data are
• aes_all
  Given a character vector, create a set of identity mappings
• aes_auto
  Automatic aesthetic mapping
• aes_string
  Generate aesthetic mappings from a string
• aes_colour_fill_alpha(alpha, color, colour, fill)
  Colour related aesthetics: colour, fill and alpha
• aes_group_order(group, order)
  Aesthetics: group, order
• aes_linetype_size_shape(linetype, shape, size)
  Differentiation related aesthetics: linetype, size, shape
• aes_position(x, xend, xmax, xmin, y, yend, ymax, ymin)
  Position related aesthetics: x, y, xmin, xmax, ymin, ymax, xend, yend

Other

• cut_interval
  Cut numeric vector into intervals of equal length.
• cut_number
  Cut numeric vector into intervals containing equal number of points.
• discrete_scale
  Discrete scale constructor.
• gg_dep
  Give a deprecation error, warning, or messsage, depending on version number.
• ggfluctuation
  Create a fluctuation plot.
• ggmissing
  Create a plot to illustrate patterns of missing values.
• ggorder
  A plot to investigate the order in which observations were recorded.
• ggpcp
  Make a parallel coordinates plot.
• ggplot2(ggplot2-package)
  ggplot2.
• ggsave
  Save a ggplot with sensible defaults
• ggscale
  Components of a scale:
• ggstructure
  A plot which aims to reveal gross structural anomalies in the data.
• hmisc(mean_cl_boot, mean_cl_normal, mean_sdl, median_hilow)
  Wrap up a selection of summary functions from Hmisc to make it easy to use
• last_plot
  Retrieve the last plot to be modified or created.
• mean_se
  Calculate mean and standard errors on either side.
• plotmatrix
  Code to create a scatterplot matrix (experimental)
• resolution
  Compute the "resolution" of a data vector.
• scale_size_area
  Scale area instead of radius, for size.
• theme_blank(theme_line, theme_rect, theme_segment, theme_text)
  Deprecated theme_xx functions
• theme_classic
  A classic-looking theme, with x and y axis lines and no gridlines.
• theme_minimal
  A minimalistic theme with no background annotations.
• translate_qplot_base
  Translating between qplot and base graphics
• translate_qplot_ggplot
  Translating between qplot and ggplot
• translate_qplot_gpl
  Translating between qplot and Graphics Production Library (GPL)
• translate_qplot_lattice
  Translating between qplot and lattice
• update_geom_defaults(update_stat_defaults)
  Modify geom/stat aesthetic defaults for future plots