200 Chart Choices with R
The R statistical package is an amazingly powerful and versatile tool for data analysis and data visualization. When it comes to graphics and charts, here is one reason: It has foundational plotting tools that can be adapted in infinitely many ways to create (and invent) many more types of charts than you will find in any other software package.
The choices and the versatility can be overwhelming. So it is useful when other R fans create cheat sheets and handy resources for the rest of us. One such resource is the R Graph Gallery recently developed by Yan Holtz. It shows over 200 examples of different charts that can be created using relatively simple R code. Best yet, it includes the R code used to create each chart, which you can copy, paste, and then adapt to your own needs.
It includes many examples of charts in categories such as:
- Scatterplots
- Boxplots
- Histograms
- Maps
- 3-D charts
- Interactive charts
- Stacked area charts
- Heat maps
- Dendograms
- Stream graphs
- Word clouds
- Line graphs
- Donut charts
- Radar charts
- Bar charts
- Density plots
- Bubble charts
- Mekko charts
- Circular plots
- Venn diagrams
- Topographic charts
- Time series charts
- Correlgrams
The gallery even contains examples of data art, which are R-generated graphics created simply for beauty or effect. (Take a look, for example, at the orange background in our video, which has tiny artistic white and gold letters and numbers running vertically. You can create images like this in R!)
Even charts designed for research reports can end up looking stunningly beautiful. (Take a look, for example, at How to Create a Beautiful Market Share Chart.)
So, while R is not always easy, the results are nearly always worth the effort. You’ll find yourself working with far more charting power (and beauty) than you ever have before.
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