[R] Boxplot philosophy {was "Boxplot in R"}

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "Spencer" == Spencer Graves <spencer.graves at pdf.com>
>>>>>     on Mon, 11 Jul 2005 19:08:39 -0700 writes:

    Spencer> I'll bite:  How does one detect bimodalidty from a boxplot?

One does not,
and that (whole area) was the main reason I mentioned  "violin
plots" which do show features such as bimodality:

There's a simple violin plot in the (recommended and hence
always available) package "lattice"

 library(lattice)
 example(panel.vioplot)

but for the sake of bimodality {and the version of violin plot
that was in the 1998 Am.Stat. paper}

 install.packages("vioplot") # if needed
 example(vioplot)

Both of these examples use the basic boxplot but *add* to it, so
you can, e.g., clearly discern bimodality.

Martin Maechler