[R] triangular plot

[David Winsemius]

On Jun 11, 2009, at 8:56 AM, Penner, Johannes wrote:

> Sorry for probably again an easy question but I can not find the
> solution...
>
> Using the ade4 package I am drawing a triangular graph:
>
> triangle.plot(data2, label = row.names(data2), clab=0.6,
> show.position=FALSE, box=FALSE)
>
> Which is what I want. Unfortunately the labels have a frame and a  
> white
> background. I would like to have them without frame and colour,  
> similar
> to what you get with type="text".
>
> I tried various things (box, boxes, label.color and settings of par  
> via
> fg or bg="transparent") without luck. Any help is highly appreciated.
>
> Thanks a lot in advance

triangle.plot does not have optional parameters to be passed to  
accessory functions. Furthermore, it calls scatterutil.eti for the  
plotting of boxes which has hard-coded white background in the boxes.  
As far as I can tell triangle.plot does not pass a color argument for  
the borders of the boxes.

scatterutil.eti
function (x, y, label, clabel, boxes = TRUE, coul = rep(1, length(x)),
     horizontal = TRUE)
<snipped code>
         if (boxes) {
             rect(x1 - xh/2, y1 - yh/2, x1 + xh/2, y1 + yh/2,
                 col = "white", border = coul[i])
<snipped code>

scatterutil.eti2
function (x, y, label, clabel, boxes = TRUE, coul = rep(1, length(x)),
     horizontal = TRUE)
<snipped code>
         if (boxes) {
             rect(x1 - xh/2, y1 - yh/2, x1 + xh/2, y1 + yh/2,
                 col = "transparent", border = coul[i])
<snipped code>

I made up a triangle.plot2 and a scatterutil.eti2 with  
col="transparent" and provision for passing color parameters to the  
borders of the boxes and a got part of the way toward what you are  
asking requesting. There is a remaining glitch when I use the first  
example in the triangle.plot help page. A minority of items still get  
boxes even though they are transparent. Probably has to do with the  
default assignment of coul[i] to border. That could certainly be  
altered as well.

I could not tell exactly what you mean by "have them without frame and  
colour" either because of your use of the indefinite English pronoun  
or the use of Aristotelean logic. They (the boxes anyway) currently  
have no color. Did you want color added to <something>? At any rate  
you can do the same sort of function hacking as I did. There are no  
methods or other complicating issues in your way. All the source is  
"at the surface."

-- 

David Winsemius, MD
Heritage Laboratories
West Hartford, CT