[R] Plotting panels at arbitrary places on a map, rather than on a lattice

[Deepayan Sarkar]

On Friday 01 October 2004 11:58, Michael Dewey wrote:
> I think it is easiest to describe
> what I want in terms of the concrete
> problem I have.
>
> I have data from a number of countries
> in each of which a sample of people was
> interviewed. In presenting the results
> in a forthcoming collaborative publication
> much emphasis will be placed on the
> multi-centre nature of the study. Although
> I suspect colleagues may do this with
> shaded maps I would prefer to avoid
> them as (a) they present one fact per
> country per map (b) they are unfair to
> the Netherlands and other high density
> countries.
>
> What I would like to do is to make
> the background represent Europe (ideally
> with a map but that is a frill) then
> place simple scattergrams (or radar plots)
> on it located roughly where the country
> is. Another way of describing it might
> be to say that I want something like
> the panels produced by lattice but at
> arbitrary coordinates rather than on
> a rectangular grid. I suspect I have
> to do this from scratch and I would
> welcome hints.
>
> Am I right that there is no off the
> shelf way to do this?

I'm not terribly familiar with radar plots (and not at all with 
scattergrams - what are they?), but if you want radar plots as produced 
by 'stars', then it seems to have an argument called 'location' which 
you can use to specify the locations of the stars. That sounds like 
what you might want. You can also specify 'add = TRUE', which, if you 
call 'stars' after you have already drawn the map, should superpose 
your radar plots on the map. 

I'm not sure how best to draw the map you want, but I'm sure there's a 
way (maybe using the maps package).

Deepayan