Data Visualization and Graphics

Abstract

One of the main attractions of R is its software for visualizing data and presenting results through displays. R provides functions to generate plots from data, plus a flexible environment for modifying the details of the plots and for creating new software. This chapter examines programming for graphics using R, emphasizing some concepts underlying most of the R software for graphics. The first section outlines the organization of this software. Section 7.2, page 242, relates the software to the x-y plot as the most valuable model for statistical graphics with R. The next four sections provide the essential concepts for computational graphics in R (7.3, 253) and relate those to the three main packages for general-purpose graphics, base graphics (7.4, 263), grid (7.5, 271), and lattice (7.6, 280).