11  Base R

R has a number of different graphics systems. The graphics package comes when you install base R and is attached, by default, every time you start R. This package provides a lot of functionality, but it does not have a consistent syntax across different types of plots.

11.1 Histograms

# Histogram
hist(islands)

11.2 Boxplots

# Boxplot
boxplot(islands)

# Boxplots
boxplot(count ~ spray, data = InsectSprays)

11.3 Scatterplot

# Scatterplots
plot(x = cars$speed, y = cars$dist) # or

plot(dist ~ speed, data = cars)     # using a formula

11.4 Line plot

# Line plot
plot(unemploy ~ date, data = ggplot2::economics, type = "l")

11.5 Function

# Plot a function
curve(dnorm(x, 
            mean = 3, 
            sd   = 1), 
      from = 0, 
      to   = 6)

11.6 Heatmap

# Heatmap
image(volcano)

11.7 Summary

Compared to what we will see with ggplot2 graphics, base R graphics are relatively terse, i.e. the amount of code is minimal.

Using base graphics, each function uses a different data type.

# Base R graphics use all different types of data
class(islands)

[1] "numeric"

class(InsectSprays)

[1] "data.frame"

class(cars)

[1] "data.frame"

class(volcano)

[1] "matrix" "array"