Scatter Plots - R Base Graphs - Easy Guides - Wiki (2024)

• Pleleminary tasks
• R base scatter plot: plot()
• Enhanced scatter plots: car::scatterplot()
• 3D scatter plots
• Summary
• Related articles
• See also
• Infos

1. Launch RStudio as described here: Running RStudio and setting up your working directory

2. Prepare your data as described here: Best practices for preparing your data and save it in an external .txt tab or .csv files

3. Import your data into R as described here: Fast reading of data from txt|csv files into R: readr package.

Here, we’ll use the R built-in mtcars data set.

x <- mtcars$wty <- mtcars$mpg# Plot with main and axis titles# Change point shape (pch = 19) and remove frame.plot(x, y, main = "Main title", xlab = "X axis title", ylab = "Y axis title", pch = 19, frame = FALSE)# Add regression lineplot(x, y, main = "Main title", xlab = "X axis title", ylab = "Y axis title", pch = 19, frame = FALSE)abline(lm(y ~ x, data = mtcars), col = "blue")

# Add loess fitplot(x, y, main = "Main title", xlab = "X axis title", ylab = "Y axis title", pch = 19, frame = FALSE)lines(lowess(x, y), col = "blue")

The function scatterplot() [in car package] makes enhanced scatter plots, with box plots in the margins, a non-parametric regression smooth, smoothed conditional spread, outlier identification, and a regression line, …

• Install car package:

install.packages("car")

• Use scatterplot() function:

library("car")scatterplot(wt ~ mpg, data = mtcars)

The plot contains:

# Suppress the smoother and framescatterplot(wt ~ mpg, data = mtcars, smoother = FALSE, grid = FALSE, frame = FALSE)

# Scatter plot by groups ("cyl")scatterplot(wt ~ mpg | cyl, data = mtcars, smoother = FALSE, grid = FALSE, frame = FALSE)

It’s also possible to add labels using the following arguments:

# Add labelsscatterplot(wt ~ mpg, data = mtcars, smoother = FALSE, grid = FALSE, frame = FALSE, labels = rownames(mtcars), id.n = nrow(mtcars), id.cex = 0.7, id.col = "steelblue", ellipse = TRUE)

## Mazda RX4 Mazda RX4 Wag Datsun 710 Hornet 4 Drive Hornet Sportabout Valiant ## 1 2 3 4 5 6 ## Duster 360 Merc 240D Merc 230 Merc 280 Merc 280C Merc 450SE ## 7 8 9 10 11 12 ## Merc 450SL Merc 450SLC Cadillac Fleetwood Lincoln Continental Chrysler Imperial Fiat 128 ## 13 14 15 16 17 18 ## Honda Civic Toyota Corolla Toyota Corona Dodge Challenger AMC Javelin Camaro Z28 ## 19 20 21 22 23 24 ## Pontiac Firebird Fiat X1-9 Porsche 914-2 Lotus Europa Ford Pantera L Ferrari Dino ## 25 26 27 28 29 30 ## Maserati Bora Volvo 142E ## 31 32

Other arguments can be used such as:

To plot a 3D scatterplot the function scatterplot3D [in scatterplot3D package can be used].

The following R code plots a 3D scatter plot using iris data set.

head(iris)

## Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species## 1 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.2 setosa## 2 4.9 3.0 1.4 0.2 setosa## 3 4.7 3.2 1.3 0.2 setosa## 4 4.6 3.1 1.5 0.2 setosa## 5 5.0 3.6 1.4 0.2 setosa## 6 5.4 3.9 1.7 0.4 setosa

# Prepare the data setx <- iris$Sepal.Lengthy <- iris$Sepal.Widthz <- iris$Petal.Lengthgrps <- as.factor(iris$Species)# Plotlibrary(scatterplot3d)scatterplot3d(x, y, z, pch = 16)

# Change color by groups# add grids and remove the box around the plot# Change axis labels: xlab, ylab and zlabcolors <- c("#999999", "#E69F00", "#56B4E9")scatterplot3d(x, y, z, pch = 16, color = colors[grps], grid = TRUE, box = FALSE, xlab = "Sepal length", ylab = "Sepal width", zlab = "Petal length")

• Read more about static and interactive 3D scatter plot:
  • R base scatterplot3D
  • Amazing interactive 3D scatter plots
  • Impressive package for 3D and 4D graph
  • A complete guide to interactive 3D visualization device system in R

Create a scatter plot:

• Using R base function:

with(mtcars, plot(wt, mpg, frame = FALSE))

• Using car package:

car::scatterplot(wt ~ mpg, data = mtcars, smoother = FALSE, grid = FALSE)

• 3D scatter plot:

library(scatterplot3d)with(iris, scatterplot3d(x = Sepal.Length, y = Sepal.Width, z = Petal.Length, pch = 16, grid = TRUE, box = FALSE))

• Creating and Saving Graphs in R
• Scatter Plot Matrices
• Box Plots
• Strip Charts: 1-D scatter Plots
• Bar Plots
• Line Plots
• Pie Charts
• Histogram and Density Plots
• Dot Charts
• Plot Group Means and Confidence Intervals
• Graphical Parameters

• Lattice Graphs
• ggplot2 Graphs

This analysis has been performed using R statistical software (ver. 3.2.4).