output: github_document

ggpattern

ggpattern provides custom ggplot2 geoms which support filled areas with geometric and image-based patterns.

Reading the articles/vignettes on the package website is probably the best way to get started.

Feature Summary

• Custom versions of (almost) all the geoms from ggplot2 which have a region which can be filled.
• A suite of aesthetics for controlling the pattern appearance (e.g. pattern_alpha)
• The ability to include user-defined patterns

Installation

You can install the development version from GitHub with the instructions below.

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("coolbutuseless/ggpattern")

An installation error is highly unlikely to be an issue with {ggpattern} itself. Please don't open up a Github Issues unless you are sure it is an issue with {ggpattern} itself. If you have an error installing the package we strongly suggest that you look at all your error messages more closely to figure out which package dependency is failing to install and why. See https://thomasadventure.blog/posts/install-r-packages/ for more info on installing R packages.

Quickstart

1. Take an existing plot which contains a geom with a fillable area e.g geom_col().
2. Use the {ggpattern} version of the geom e.g. ggpattern::geom_col_pattern() instead of ggplot2::geom_col()
3. Set the aesthetic pattern to your choice of pattern e.g pattern = 'stripe', and set other options using pattern_* aesthetics

df <- data.frame(level = c("a", "b", "c", 'd'), outcome = c(2.3, 1.9, 3.2, 1))

ggplot(df) +
  geom_col_pattern(
    aes(level, outcome, pattern_fill = level), 
    pattern = 'stripe',
    fill    = 'white',
    colour  = 'black'
  ) +
  theme_bw(18) +
  theme(legend.position = 'none') + 
  labs(
    title    = "ggpattern::geom_col_pattern()",
    subtitle = "pattern = 'stripe'"
  ) +
  coord_fixed(ratio = 1/2)

Gallery

Feature Details

Available Geoms

ggpattern includes versions of (nearly) all geoms from ggplot2 which could plausiblly support being filled with a pattern.

See the vignette galleries for examples of all the available geoms filled with geometry-based patterns and image-based/array-based patterns.

New aesthetics

To control pattern appearance, a raft of new aesthetics have been added. e.g. pattern_alpha, pattern_filename, pattern_density.

There are also scale functions to control each of these new aesthetics e.g. scale_pattern_alpha_discrete.

Not all aesthetics apply to all patterns. See the individual pattern vignettes for which aesthetics it uses, or see the first vignette on developing user-defined patterns for a table of aesthetic use by pattern, or see the individual vignettes for each pattern.

User-Defined Patterns

Users can write their own pattern functions and ask ggpattern to use them, without having to include the pattern in the package.

See the vignette on developing patterns: vignette("developing-patterns", package = "ggpattern").

Vignettes

Note: due to CRAN package size limits many of these vignettes are only available in the Github version of {ggpattern} and the package website.

General examples

• Examples of every geom filled with the geometry-based patterns (i.e. 'stripe', 'crosshatch', 'circle'): vignette("geom-gallery-geometry", package = "ggpattern")
• Examples of every geom filled with the array-based patterns (i.e. 'image', 'magick', 'gradient', 'plasma', 'placeholder'): vignette("geom-gallery-geometry", package = "ggpattern")

Exploration of pattern parameters and appearance

• Patterns 'circle', 'pch', 'regular_polygon', 'rose' - Parameters and Examples: vignette("patterns-points", package = "ggpattern")

• Patterns 'gradient', 'ambient', 'plasma' - Parameters and Examples: vignette("patterns-noise", package = "ggpattern")

• Patterns 'image' and 'placeholder' - Parameters and Examples: vignette("patterns-image", package = "ggpattern")

• Patterns 'magick' and 'polygon_tiling' - Parameters and Examples: vignette("patterns-tilings", package = "ggpattern")

• Patterns 'stripe', 'wave', 'crosshatch', 'weave' - Parameters and Examples: vignette("patterns-stripes", package = "ggpattern")

• Parameters for Geometry-based Patterns: vignette("geometry-based-pattern-parameters", package = "ggpattern")

Developing your own pattern

• Developing Patterns: vignette("developing-patterns", package = "ggpattern")

Other examples

• Animating Patterns with {gganimate}: vignette("gganimate", package = "ggpattern")
• Creating the Logo in R: vignette("create-logo", package = "ggpattern")

Limitations

• Use pattern_aspect_ratio to override the internal aspect ratio calculation.
• Legend rendering for patterns is still not great.
  • Use pattern_key_scale_factor to adjust legend appearance.
• The Rstudio output device can be quite slow for plots with lots of patterns. It is often faster to save directly to PNG or PDF and view that.
• Self intersecting geometry can be an issue.
• Non-linear coordinate systems have not been tested.

ToDo

• Possibly add geoms from third-party sources e.g.
  • geom_circle() and geom_voronoi() from ggforce