Data Visualization in R

Data visualization is the technique used to deliver insights in data using

visual cues such as graphs, charts, maps, and many others. This is useful
as it helps in intuitive and easy understanding of the large quantities of
data and thereby make better decisions regarding it.

Data Visualization in R Programming Language

The popular data visualization tools that are available are Tableau, Plotly,
R, Google Charts, Infogram, and Kibana. The various data visualization
platforms have different capabilities, functionality, and use cases. They
also require a different skill set. This article discusses the use of R for data
visualization.

R is a language that is designed for statistical computing, graphical data

analysis, and scientific research. It is usually preferred for data
visualization as it offers flexibility and minimum required coding through
its packages.

Consider the following airquality data set for visualization in R:

Ozon Solar Win Tem Mont Da

e R. d p h y

41 190 7.4 67 5 1

36 118 8.0 72 5 2

12 149 12.6 74 5 3

18 313 11.5 62 5 4

NA NA 14.3 56 5 5

28 NA 14.9 66 5 6

Types of Data Visualizations

Types of Data Visualizations

Some of the various types of visualizations offered by R are:

Bar Plot

There are two types of bar plots- horizontal and vertical which represent
data points as horizontal or vertical bars of certain lengths proportional to
the value of the data item. They are generally used for continuous and
categorical variable plotting. By setting the horiz parameter to true and
false, we can get horizontal and vertical bar plots respectively.

Example 1:

# Horizontal Bar Plot for

# Ozone concentration in air

barplot(airquality$Ozone,

main = 'Ozone Concenteration in air',

xlab = 'ozone levels', horiz = TRUE) Output:

Example 2:

# Vertical Bar Plot for

# Ozone concentration in air

barplot(airquality$Ozone, main = 'Ozone Concenteration in air',

Output:

Bar plots are used for the following scenarios:

 To perform a comparative study between the various data

categories in the data set.

 To analyze the change of a variable over time in months or years.

Histogram

A histogram is like a bar chart as it uses bars of varying height to

represent data distribution. However, in a histogram values are grouped
into consecutive intervals called bins. In a Histogram, continuous values
are grouped and displayed in these bins whose size can be varied.

Example:

# Histogram for Maximum Daily Temperature

data(airquality)

hist(airquality$Temp, main ="La Guardia Airport's\

Maximum Temperature(Daily)",

xlab ="Temperature(Fahrenheit)",

xlim = c(50, 125), col ="yellow",

freq = TRUE) Output:

For a histogram, the parameter xlim can be used to specify the interval
within which all values are to be displayed.
Another parameter freq when set to TRUE denotes the frequency of the
various values in the histogram and when set to FALSE, the probability
densities are represented on the y-axis such that they are of the
histogram adds up to one.

Histograms are used in the following scenarios:

 To verify an equal and symmetric distribution of the data.

 To identify deviations from expected values.

Box Plot
The statistical summary of the given data is presented graphically using a
boxplot. A boxplot depicts information like the minimum and maximum
data point, the median value, first and third quartile, and interquartile
range.

Example:

# Box plot for average wind speed

data(airquality)

boxplot(airquality$Wind, main = "Average wind speed\

at La Guardia Airport",

xlab = "Miles per hour", ylab = "Wind",

col = "orange", border = "brown",

horizontal = TRUE, notch = TRUE) Output:

Multiple box plots can also be generated at once through the following
code:

Example:

# Multiple Box plots, each representing

# an Air Quality Parameter

boxplot(airquality[, 0:4],

main ='Box Plots for Air Quality Parameters') Output:

Box Plots are used for:

 To give a comprehensive statistical description of the data through a

visual cue.

 To identify the outlier points that do not lie in the inter-quartile range
of data.

Scatter Plot
A scatter plot is composed of many points on a Cartesian plane. Each
point denotes the value taken by two parameters and helps us easily
identify the relationship between them.

Example: # Scatter plot for Ozone Concentration per month

data(airquality)

plot(airquality$Ozone, airquality$Month,

main ="Scatterplot Example",

xlab ="Ozone Concentration in parts per billion",

ylab =" Month of observation ", pch = 19)

Output:

Scatter Plots are used in the following scenarios:

 To show whether an association exists between bivariate data.

  To measure the strength and direction of such a relationship.

Heat Map

Heatmap is defined as a graphical representation of data using colors to

visualize the value of the matrix. heatmap() function is used to plot
heatmap.

Syntax: heatmap(data)

Parameters: data: It represent matrix data, such as values of rows and

columns

Return: This function draws a heatmap.

# Set seed for reproducibility

# set.seed(110)

# Create example data

data <- matrix(rnorm(50, 0, 5), nrow = 5, ncol = 5)

# Column names

colnames(data) <- paste0("col", 1:5)

rownames(data) <- paste0("row", 1:5)

# Draw a heatmap

heatmap(data) Output:
Map visualization in R

Here we are using maps package to visualize and display geographical

maps using an R programming language.

install.packages("maps")

# Read dataset and convert it into

# Dataframe

data <- read.csv("worldcities.csv")

df <- data.frame(data)

# Load the required libraries

library(maps)
map(database = "world")

# marking points on map

points(x = df$lat[1:500], y = df$lng[1:500], col = "Red")

Output:

3D Graphs in R

Here we will use preps() function, This function is used to create 3D

surfaces in perspective view. This function will draw perspective plots of a
surface over the x–y plane.

Syntax: persp(x, y, z)

Parameter: This function accepts different parameters i.e. x, y and z

where x and y are vectors defining the location along x- and y-axis. z-axis
will be the height of the surface in the matrix z.

Return Value: persp() returns the viewing transformation matrix for

projecting 3D coordinates (x, y, z) into the 2D plane using homogeneous
4D coordinates (x, y, z, t).

# Adding Titles and Labeling Axes to Plot

cone <- function(x, y){

sqrt(x ^ 2 + y ^ 2)

# prepare variables.

x <- y <- seq(-1, 1, length = 30)

z <- outer(x, y, cone)

# plot the 3D surface

# Adding Titles and Labeling Axes to Plot

persp(x, y, z,

main="Perspective Plot of a Cone",

zlab = "Height",

theta = 30, phi = 15,

col = "orange", shade = 0.4) Output:

Advantages of Data Visualization in R:

R has the following advantages over other tools for data visualization:
  R offers a broad collection of visualization libraries along with
extensive online guidance on their usage.

 R also offers data visualization in the form of 3D models and

multipanel charts.

 Through R, we can easily customize our data visualization by

changing axes, fonts, legends, annotations, and labels.

Disadvantages of Data Visualization in R:

R also has the following disadvantages:

 R is only preferred for data visualization when done on an individual

standalone server.

 Data visualization using R is slow for large amounts of data as

compared to other counterparts.

Application Areas:

 Presenting analytical conclusions of the data to the non-analysts

departments of your company.

 Health monitoring devices use data visualization to track any

anomaly in blood pressure, cholesterol and others.

 To discover repeating patterns and trends in consumer and

marketing data.

 Meteorologists use data visualization for assessing prevalent

weather changes throughout the world.

 Real-time maps and geo-positioning systems use visualization for

traffic monitoring and estimating travel time.