[R] 3D histogram

[Spencer Graves]

Hi, Lorenz: 

      I mostly agree with what you say, including the reference to 
Tufte.  However, I find that perspective plots can help build intuition 
about relationships that are not obtainable from other graphics.  It's 
similar to the difference between perspective plots and floor plans, 
etc., in architecture:  Professionals use both for different purposes. 

      I agree that perspective graphics, etc., often obfuscate more than 
they display.  However, I think they can have some utility. 

      I just did a search of "www.r-project.org" -> search -> "R site 
search".  The term "3-d histogram" produced too many hits.  "Bivariate 
histogram" led me to hist2d {gregmisc}.  I haven't tried it, but it 
looks like it might do what Tine wants, possibly in conjunction with 
persp and contour, as described in the examples. 

      spencer graves

Lorenz.Gygax at fat.admin.ch wrote:

>Hi Tine,
>
>  
>
>>I have been trying to look for documentation on making a 3D 
>>histogram in R (so a histogram on which there are several distributions 
>>are plotted), but I cannot find anything on it. Is it possible to
>>construct such histograms and should use a special package (f.e. R.Basic)?
>>    
>>
>
>In my opinion you should never use 3D graphs. Due to the perspective on
>these graphs it is always difficult to compare different values of the
>graphed data and usually it is also difficult to get a good estimate of the
>actual values as the axes are not always aligned with the data of interst.
>
>You might want to ask yourself whether your data is really as simple that it
>can be shown in bars (or could you e.g. rather use boxlplots). If you want
>to graph your data as in barplots, you could plot the values of your bars
>using points in a 2D diagram and e.g. connect the points that would have
>been in one row/column in the 3D diagram.
>
>If you are interested in the graphical presentation of quantitative data, I
>can only recommend:
>
>@Book{Tuf:99,
>  author = 	 {Tufte, Edward R},
>  title = 	 {The Visual Display of Quantitative Information},
>  publisher = 	 {Graphic Press},
>  year = 	 {1999},
>  address = 	 {Cheshire, Connecticut},
>  edition = 	 {17th printing}
>}
>
>Hope this helps. Lorenz
>- 
>Lorenz Gygax, Dr. sc. nat.
>Tel: +41 (0)52 368 33 84 / lorenz.gygax at fat.admin.ch      
>
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