Arrange and size multiple plots in Lattice R

Question

I want to plot three plots vary close together, so they appear as one field. My data are arrays with different dimensions. Here is some example code to display my problem:

library(lattice)

theme.novpadding = list(layout.heights = list(top.padding = 0,
                                          main.key.padding = 0,
                                          key.axis.padding = 0,
                                          axis.xlab.padding = 0,
                                          xlab.key.padding = 0,
                                          key.sub.padding = 0,
                                          bottom.padding = 0),
                    layout.widths =  list(left.padding = 0,
                                          key.ylab.padding = 0,
                                          ylab.axis.padding = 0,
                                          axis.key.padding = 0,
                                          right.padding = 0),
                    axis.line = list(col = "transparent"))


p1 = levelplot(array(c(1:100), c(10,10)), colorkey=F, par.settings=theme.novpadding)
p2 = levelplot(array(c(1:100), c(9,9)), colorkey=F, ylab = NULL, par.settings=theme.novpadding)
p3 = levelplot(array(c(1:100), c(11,11)),  ylab=NULL, par.settings=theme.novpadding)

width = 0.33
height = 1

ph = list(5, "in")

print(p1, position = c(0, 0, width, height), panel.height=ph, more=T)
print(p2, position = c(width, 0, 2*width, height), panel.height=ph, more=T)
print(p3, position = c(2*width, 0, 3*width, height),panel.height=ph, more=F)

As you see, they are spread very wide. I want them as close as possible. I use theme.novpadding to set the margins to zero. Is the a way to say something like "distance between plots"?

seems to me that you should make sure the margins of each plot are snug, before arranging them. — baptiste, Mar 06 '13 at 18:19
I removed the margins, but unfortunately it didn't change much. — TWiSt_kid, Mar 07 '13 at 09:48

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 02 '16 at 18:09

This problem is easy to solve if you structure your data into a nice data.frame. Lattice works best on data.frames. See the example bellow:

g.xy <- expand.grid(1:10, 1:10)
my.data <- data.frame(x=g.xy$Var1, y = g.xy$Var2, value1=1:100, value2 = 1:100, value3=1:100, value4=1:100)
levelplot(value1+value2+value3+value4~x+y, data=my.data, scales=list(x="free", y="free")) # free
levelplot(value1+value2+value3+value4~x+y, data=my.data, scales=list(x="same", y="same")) # same range, so panels are "touching"

You can control for the plots to appear very close together by setting the scale argument.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 12 '13 at 11:11

A trick you could use is to tweak the position argument. In stead of not letting the areas overlap, you can do just that to make them close together. For example, you can change the position arguments to:

ovr = 0.05
print(p1, position = c(0, 0, width + ovr, height), panel.height=ph, more=T)
print(p2, position = c(width - ovr, 0, 2*width+ovr, height), panel.height=ph, more=T)
print(p3, position = c(2*width - ovr, 0, 3*width, height),panel.height=ph, more=F)

You have to some tweaking with this, and I have not tested this code. But I think the general idea should work.

Arrange and size multiple plots in Lattice R

2 Answers2