Base R provides a powerful set of tools for creating a variety of static, interactive, and dynamic graphics. In this tutorial, we will explore how to create basic plots using Base R graphics, step by step, in simple terms.
What You Will Learn:
- Setting up R
- Creating Simple Plots
- Customizing Plots
- Saving Plots
1. Setting up R
First, ensure that you have R installed on your system. You can download and install R from CRAN.
Once installed, you can open R or RStudio to start working with graphics.
2. Creating Simple Plots
a. Simple Scatter Plot
A scatter plot is used to visualize the relationship between two variables.
# Sample data
x <- c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
y <- c(2, 4, 6, 8, 10)
# Creating a scatter plot
plot(x, y)
Output: A simple scatter plot where x and y values are plotted against each other.
b. Line Plot
A line plot is used to show trends over time or sequence.
# Sample data
x <- 1:10
y <- x^2
# Creating a line plot
plot(x, y, type = "l")
Output: A line connecting points in a sequence from 1 to 10, showing the squares.
3. Customizing Plots
a. Adding Titles and Labels
# Adding titles and labels
plot(x, y, main = "Square of Numbers", xlab = "Numbers", ylab = "Squares")
Output: Title “Square of Numbers” with appropriate X and Y axis labels.
b. Changing Colors
# Changing colors
plot(x, y, col = "blue", pch = 19)
Output: A blue scatter plot with filled points.
c. Adding a Legend
# Adding legend
plot(x, y, col = "red", pch = 16)
legend("topright", legend = "Squares", col = "red", pch = 16)
Output: A legend added to the plot indicating that red dots represent squares.
4. Saving Plots
To save the plot as an image file, you can use:
# Saving plot as PNG
png("plot_example.png")
plot(x, y)
dev.off()
This saves the plot as a plot_example.png file.