[R-sig-Geo] Adding a scale bar and north arrow to a ggplot

Paul Hiemstra p.hiemstra at geo.uu.nl
Wed Dec 15 10:21:28 CET 2010


On 12/15/2010 09:53 AM, Roger Bivand wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Dec 2010, Paul Hiemstra wrote:
>
>> Hi people,
>>
>> I posted a similar question to the ggplot2 mailing list and with 
>> their help and a lot of tinkering I got a well working function to 
>> add a scalebar to a ggplot plot. I could add the function to automap, 
>> but is there another package which would be more appropraite, e.g. sp 
>> (Roger?)?
>
> Paul,
>
> If it was added to sp, sp would depend on ggplot2 and its 
> dependencies, which are quite extensive, and include a circularity, 
> because ggplot2 suggests maptools, which in turn depends on sp. 
> Consequently, sp is not a good idea. It might even make sense to split 
> sp into sp with just classes and methods, and spViz for vizualisation 
> methods, but changing things now is a bit late!
>
> It will be cleaner to try to establish the mapping functionality that 
> uses ggplot2 and sp as a separate package. Maybe Hadley would see this 
> as a sensible development. 

Or make a new geom_scalebar :). An alternative could be an sp-contrib 
package where any additional code relevant to sp can be put.

Paul

> There are already two supplements to ggplot2 on R-forge, but both 
> moribund, I think, which suggests that this needs thinking through.
>
> Roger
>
>>
>> cheers,
>> Paul
>>
>> ps: new version of code here:
>>
>> makeNiceNumber = function(num, num.pretty = 1) {
>>  # Rounding provided by code from Maarten Plieger
>>  return((round(num/10^(round(log10(num))-1))*(10^(round(log10(num))-1)))) 
>>
>> }
>>
>> createBoxPolygon = function(llcorner, width, height) {
>>  relativeCoords = data.frame(c(0, 0, width, width, 0), c(0, height, 
>> height, 0, 0))
>>  names(relativeCoords) = names(llcorner)
>>  return(t(apply(relativeCoords, 1, function(x) llcorner + x)))
>> }
>>
>> addScaleBar = function(ggplot_obj, spatial_obj, attribute, addParams 
>> = list()) {
>>  addParamsDefaults = list(noBins = 5, xname = "x", yname = "y", unit 
>> = "m", placement = "bottomright",
>>                           sbLengthPct = 0.3, sbHeightvsWidth = 1/14)
>>  addParams = modifyList(addParamsDefaults, addParams)
>>
>>  range_x = max(spatial_obj[[addParams[["xname"]]]]) - 
>> min(spatial_obj[[addParams[["xname"]]]])
>>  range_y = max(spatial_obj[[addParams[["yname"]]]]) - 
>> min(spatial_obj[[addParams[["yname"]]]])
>>  lengthScalebar = addParams[["sbLengthPct"]] * range_x
>>  ## OPTION: use pretty() instead
>>  widthBin = makeNiceNumber(lengthScalebar / addParams[["noBins"]])
>>  heightBin = lengthScalebar * addParams[["sbHeightvsWidth"]]
>>  lowerLeftCornerScaleBar = c(x = 
>> max(spatial_obj[[addParams[["xname"]]]]) - (widthBin * 
>> addParams[["noBins"]]),
>>                              y = 
>> min(spatial_obj[[addParams[["yname"]]]]))
>>
>>  scaleBarPolygon = do.call("rbind", lapply(0:(addParams[["noBins"]] - 
>> 1), function(n) {
>>    dum = data.frame(createBoxPolygon(lowerLeftCornerScaleBar + c((n * 
>> widthBin), 0), widthBin, heightBin))
>>    if(!(n + 1) %% 2 == 0) dum$cat = "odd" else dum$cat = "even"
>>    return(dum)
>>  }))
>>  scaleBarPolygon[[attribute]] = min(spatial_obj[[attribute]])
>>  textScaleBar = data.frame(x = 
>> lowerLeftCornerScaleBar[[addParams[["xname"]]]] + 
>> (c(0:(addParams[["noBins"]])) * widthBin),
>>                            y = 
>> lowerLeftCornerScaleBar[[addParams[["yname"]]]],
>>                            label = 
>> as.character(0:(addParams[["noBins"]]) * widthBin))
>>  textScaleBar[[attribute]] = min(spatial_obj[[attribute]])
>>
>>  return(ggplot_obj +
>>    geom_polygon(data = subset(scaleBarPolygon, cat == "odd"), fill = 
>> "black", color = "black", legend = FALSE) +
>>    geom_polygon(data = subset(scaleBarPolygon, cat == "even"), fill = 
>> "white", color = "black", legend = FALSE) +
>>    geom_text(aes(label = label), color = "black", size = 6, data = 
>> textScaleBar, hjust = 0.5, vjust = 1.2, legend = FALSE))
>> }
>>
>> library(ggplot2)
>> library(sp)
>>
>> data(meuse)
>> data(meuse.grid)
>> ggobj = ggplot(aes(x = x, y = y, color = zinc), data = meuse) + 
>> geom_point()
>> # Make sure to increase the graphic device a bit
>> addScaleBar(ggobj, meuse, "zinc", addParams = list(noBins = 5))
>>
>>
>> On 11/18/2010 09:12 PM, Paul Hiemstra wrote:
>>> Dear list,
>>>
>>> A common addition to any spatial plot are a north arrow and a scale 
>>> bar. I've searched online for a straightforward way to add those to 
>>> a ggplot plot. I then decided to give a go myself. A crude first 
>>> attempt for an automatic scalebar addition function is listed below. 
>>> The example works for the meuse dataset, but a second with a 
>>> different dataset did yield good results.
>>>
>>> My question to you is: is there anyone who has some good tips / 
>>> example code to add a north arrow and a scalebar to a ggplot image. 
>>> Any expansions on the code below are also welcome.
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>> Paul
>>>
>>> ps Some info on my system is listed at the very bottom
>>>
>>> library(sp)
>>> library(ggplot2)
>>>
>>> data(meuse)
>>> data(meuse.grid)
>>>
>>> string.length = function(s) {
>>> #  browser()
>>>   if(!is.character(s)) s = as.character(s)
>>>   length(strsplit(s, "")[[1]])
>>> }
>>>
>>> makeNiceNumber = function(num, num.pretty = 1) {
>>>   noNumbers = string.length(as.character(round(num)))
>>>   return(round(num / 10^(noNumbers - num.pretty)) * 10^(noNumbers - 
>>> num.pretty))
>>> }
>>>
>>> makeScaleBar = function(obj, plotname, xname = "x", yname = "y", 
>>> unit = "m", placement = "bottomright") {
>>> #     browser()
>>>   range_x = max(obj[[xname]]) - min(obj[[xname]])
>>>   range_y = max(obj[[yname]]) - min(obj[[yname]])
>>>   if(placement == "bottomright") {
>>>     xcoor.max = makeNiceNumber(max(obj[[xname]]) - (0.05 *range_x ), 
>>> string.length(round(max(obj[[xname]]))) - string.length(round(0.3 * 
>>> range_x)))
>>>     xcoor.min = makeNiceNumber(max(obj[[xname]]) - (0.5 *range_x ), 
>>> string.length(round(max(obj[[xname]]))) - string.length(round(0.3 * 
>>> range_x)))
>>>     ycoor = min(obj[[yname]]) + (0.05 * range_y)
>>>   } else {
>>>     xcoor.min = makeNiceNumber(max(obj[[xname]]) - (0.95 *range_x ), 
>>> string.length(round(max(obj[[xname]]))) - string.length(round(0.3 * 
>>> range_x)))
>>>     xcoor.max = makeNiceNumber(max(obj[[xname]]) - (0.5 *range_x ), 
>>> string.length(round(max(obj[[xname]]))) - string.length(round(0.3 * 
>>> range_x)))
>>>     ycoor = min(obj[[yname]]) + (0.95 * range_y)
>>>   }
>>>   scalebar.data = data.frame(x = c(xcoor.max, xcoor.min), y = ycoor, 
>>> lbl = c(paste(xcoor.max - xcoor.min, unit), 0))
>>>   scalebar.data[[plotname]] = min(obj[[plotname]])
>>>   return(list(geom_path(aes(x = x, y = y), data = scalebar.data, lwd 
>>> = 2, color = "black"),
>>>           geom_text(aes(x = x, y = y, label = lbl), data = 
>>> scalebar.data, vjust = 1.3)))
>>> }
>>>
>>> sb = makeScaleBar(meuse.grid, "dist", placement = "topright")
>>> ggplot(aes(x  = x, y = y, fill = dist), data = meuse.grid) + 
>>> geom_tile() + sb[[1]] + sb[[2]]
>>>
>>> R version 2.12.0 (2010-10-15)
>>> Platform: i486-pc-linux-gnu (32-bit)
>>>
>>> locale:
>>>  [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C
>>>  [3] LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8
>>>  [5] LC_MONETARY=C              LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8
>>>  [7] LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C
>>>  [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C
>>> [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
>>>
>>> attached base packages:
>>> [1] grid      stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods
>>> [8] base
>>>
>>> other attached packages:
>>> [1] ggplot2_0.8.7 digest_0.4.2  reshape_0.8.3 plyr_0.1.9    proto_0.3-8
>>> [6] sp_0.9-62
>>>
>>> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
>>> [1] lattice_0.19-13
>>>
>>> hiemstra at fg-113:~$ uname -a
>>> Linux fg-113 2.6.32-21-generic #32-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 16 08:10:02 
>>> UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>


-- 
Paul Hiemstra, MSc
Department of Physical Geography
Faculty of Geosciences
University of Utrecht
Heidelberglaan 2
P.O. Box 80.115
3508 TC Utrecht
Phone:  +3130 253 5773
http://intamap.geo.uu.nl/~paul
http://nl.linkedin.com/pub/paul-hiemstra/20/30b/770

currently @ KNMI
paul.hiemstra_AT_knmi.nl



More information about the R-sig-Geo mailing list