I would support this advice. Stacked bar charts are generally not recommended
because comparisons are difficult. Having 12 groups increases the difficulty.
Best have a look at Cleveland's work before you go down your currently intended
path. Try delving into "Elements of Graphing Data" and "Visualizing Data".
David Scott
On Tue, 29 Jan 2008, Greg Snow wrote:
I would question if a stacked area chart is really the best way to display
information on 12 groups. You can put a lot of information into the plot,
but the viewer will probably experience information overload and not be able
to get much useful information out of the plot. Stacked area plots rely on
people being able to compare areas and lengths, which we don't do as well as
we compare positions in a graph. If your viewer is needing to go back and
forth between the legend and the graph, then the information will be harder
to assimilate. It may be better to use lattice/trellis graphs and plot each
line in its own panel (on the same scale and possibly with a light background
grid to make comparison easier). If there are specific comparisons that you
want to point out, then make a separate graph with just those comparisons
leaving out the extra information that will just distract.
If you give us a better idea of what information you are trying to convey, we
may be able to give you some better options for graphs to use.
If you really want to go the pattern route then you may want to look at the
discussion from october that started with:
http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/R/Rhelp02a/archive/111226.html and/or the
discussion from earlier this week started by yaosheng CHEN with the subject
"How to fill bar plot with textile rather than color".
Hope this helps,
--
Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D.
Statistical Data Center
Intermountain Healthcare
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(801) 408-8111
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Markus Didion
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 8:42 AM
To: hadley wickham
Cc: r-help@r-project.org
Subject: Re: [R] B-W stacked area chart with pattern
Thanks Hadley for your comment. I've got a minimum of 12
species and thus just using different greys won't do it.
I've tried it with two background fills, i.e. white and a
medium grey, and then used various angles for the shading
lines, even plotted it twice to obtain some sort of cross
shading. For good, distinguishable patterns I've been hoping
to be able to fill an area with different symbols.
Markus
hadley wickham wrote:
On Jan 29, 2008 9:12 AM, Markus Didion
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Dear all,
I would like to create a stacked area chart to show the
development
of species biomass over time. Since it is intended for
publication I
need to prepare in black and white. I have tried to
modify the "stackedPlot"
function submitted to this list by Christian Lasarczyk on
Tue, 16 Aug
2005 using shading lines rather than colors to distinguish between
the species. Unfortunately, the result was not very
satisfying as the
options using different angles and densities for the shading lines
was not sufficient to clearly distinguish between species. I would
thus like to use different pattern (or texture) for this
purpose. I
have searched the various help lists on graphics in R but
was unable
to find something appropriate.
How many species do you have? Coming about with a good
(distinguishable) set of patterns is a difficult task.
Have you tried
just using different greys?
Hadley
--
Markus Didion
Waldökologie Forest Ecology
Inst. f. Terrestrische Oekosysteme Inst. of Terrestrial Ecosystems
Departement Umweltwissenschaften Dept. of Environmental Sciences
Eidg. Technische Hochschule Swiss Fed. Inst. of Technology
ETH-Zentrum CHN G78 ETH-Zentrum CHN G78
Universitätstr. 22 Universitaetstr. 22
CH-8092 Zürich CH-8092 Zurich
Schweiz Switzerland
Tel +41 (0)44 632 5629 Fax +41 (0)44 632 1358
Email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
homepage: http://www.fe.ethz.ch/people/didionm
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_________________________________________________________________
David Scott Department of Statistics, Tamaki Campus
The University of Auckland, PB 92019
Auckland 1142, NEW ZEALAND
Phone: +64 9 373 7599 ext 86830 Fax: +64 9 373 7000
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Graduate Officer, Department of Statistics
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