Grokking the Grammar of Graphics
ABSTRACT
One of the most popular libraries in R is ggplot2, a graphics library built on a concept called the grammar of graphics. In this example-heavy talk, we will learn about the grammar of graphics through ggplot2. We will start by building a series of simple visuals using ggplot2. Then, we will show how easy it is to add more and more complex functionality to our visuals, showing that we can incrementally add polish to our visuals. By the end of the talk, you will have the tools to build professional-quality visuals in R.ADDITIONAL MEDIA
No recordings or additional media are available for this talk.SLIDES
Click here to access the slides for this presentation.
The slides are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike.
DEMO CODE
Click here to access demo code for this presentation. This includes a set of Jupyter notebooks which walk through our examples.
The source code is licensed under the terms offered by the GPL.
LINKS & FURTHER INFO
- This started as a multi-part blog series, which covers most of the material in the talk.
- Leland Wilkinson's The Grammar of Graphics is the go-to book for explaining the concept. Vincent Zoonekynd has a book review with a lot of example graphics.
- Be sure to check out the ggplot2 tidyverse page.
- If you want to learn ggplot2, the ggplot2 book is a great resource, and available for purchase if you don't want to build it yourself.
- Hadley Wickham lays out the core concepts of the grammar of graphics in his paper entitled A Layered Grammar of Graphics.
- Wickham's book R for Data Science has a good chapter on data visualization as well.
- I recommend paying close attention to the ggplot2 cheat sheet.
- Zev Ross has his own cheat sheet, though it's more of a cheat long document. It's something you may want to go back to a couple of times.
- You can see the list of ggplot2 extensions available in the ggplot2-exts library. This is where you can find things like radar charts, force charts, and helpful extensions like ggrepel.
- Edureka has a good tutorial on building a number of basic plots in ggplot2.
- Kieran Healy's Data Visualization: A Practical introduction is a great introduction to R and ggplot2 for social scientists. You can read it for free online and eventually will be able to purchase a print copy.
- Sharp Sight Labs has a couple of fantastic posts covering production-quality R graphics, and I learned a lot from them. First, mapping oil production by country in R. Second, highlighting specific countries.
- Learn more about building radar chart-esque graphics by hand.