[R] figure-definition and heatmap question

[Antje]

Hi Paul,

 > You are getting the error because you are setting the figure region to
 > be larger than the current device (typically 6 or 7 inches wide/high).
 > You SHOULD be getting the error when you try par(fin), BUT there is a
 > check missing in the C code, so what happens is that heatmap saves your
 > par settings and then tries to reset them (this is where par(op) comes
 > from), and because it saves BOTH par(fig) and par(fin) it resets both of
 > them, and when it resets par(fig) there IS a check on the values, the
 > values are larger than the current device and you get the error.  Now,
 > because there is an error in resetting par(fig), that parameter is not
 > reset, so when you type par()$fin (or, equivalently, par("fin")) after
 > the heatmap() call, you get the last setting that heatmap() did, which
 > was from a layout inside heatmap, and so par("fig") is NOT what you set.
 >  Finally, there is no point in setting par(fig) before heatmap() because
 > heatmap() is one of those functions that takes over the whole device
 > anyway, so your par(fig), even if it was valid, would have no effect.
 > If you want to make the heatmap() plot take up less of the page, you
 > could set outer margins (see par(oma)), e.g., ...
 >
 > par(oma=rep(4, 4))
 > heatmap(x, Rowv = NA, Colv = NA, scale="none", col=cp(200))

thank you very much for the explanation. Now I understand at least the strange 
fig/fin values ;) There is only one question left:

> If you want to make sure that each position in the heatmap is square, DO 
> NOTHING, because the layout that heatmap() sets up is using "respect" so 
> the image will be square no matter what you do.

Okay, for the example, I've chosen it might be true. My initial reason to try 
to force it to squares has been the visualization of matrix which is not 
quadratic (e.g. 12x8). In this case heatmap stretches the coloured areas to 
rectangles. I planned to set the figure region with the same length/width ratio 
  as the matrix is to get squares...
If I understood everything now, I have to think about something else than 
heatmap to make sure to get squares, right?

Thanks, Jim, I'll test this method for my purpose :)

Ciao,
Antje

> 
> Paul
> 
> 
>>> And another question concerning the heatmap: May I force the funtion 
>>> to plot A1 at the upper left corner instead of the lower left?
>>>
>>> I'll be glad about any idea how to solve these problems...
>>>
>>> Ciao,
>>> Antje
>>>
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>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide 
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> 
>