re:" ... (I) would like to create a plot to examine for the classic elbow criterion to use in determining the best number of clusters. Ideally I'd like to plot percent variance explained (y axis) against number of clusters (x axis).... Is there a way to do this in R...?"
I found a way to produce an elbow criterion plot, using height as a measure of dissimilarity. I determined the difference in height between the two most similar clusters at k=x from the dendrogram and plotted this (y) against k (x). It does produce an elbow in the plot which narrows it down considerably, but it is still subject to interpretation. I chose k based on: 1. the location of the elbow on the plot 2. cluster size (e.g. if I had it narrowed down to 4 or 5, and making the fifth produced clusters of say 1 or 2 that weren't there at k=4, I'd use 4) 3. the height of the "tallest" cluster at k=x 4. the eigenvalues from a PCA at k=x. I thought I should reply to my own post since I noticed that the other postings on similar topics also we're replied to, and thought this could possible help others down the road. ----- Rebecca Jeppesen, MSc Candidate Acadia University Wolfville, N.S. Canada -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Elbow-criterion-plots-for-determining-k-in-hierarchical-clustering-tp15921695p16048615.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org 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.