How can I see dates plot3D in R instead of 5 - digit integers

Question

I make 3d plots in R-studio using library(rgl) package. Almost all looks good as shown in the image

except dates format. Whatever I tried to do, it does not display dates in place of integers. Here is the code I used to generate the plots:

 # Plot
Date <- as.Date(df$Date)

df["Color"] <- NA 
mycolors <- c('royalblue')
df$Color <- mycolors

par(mar=c(0,0,0,0))
plot3d(
  x = Date, y = C, z = L,
  col = df$Color,
  type = 'p',
  size = 2,
  xlab="Date", ylab="C", zlab="L")
filename <- writeWebGL(dir = file.path(folder, coln),
                       width=600, height=600, reuse = TRUE)

I have tried a few things to get the dates on the axis such as:

Date1 = as.character(df$Date)
Date = as.Date(Date1, format = "%Y%m%d")
Date = format(as.Date(df$Date, origin="1970-01-01"))
Date <- seq(as.Date("2016-02-29", format = "%Y-%m-%d"), by ="days", length = length(df$Date), origin = "1970-01-01")

But nothing works. I get integers all the time which do represent dates, e.g.

as.Date(17000, "1970-01-01")
1 "2016-07-18"

Can anyone have any ideas how to fix this problem? I will appreciate any help.

@Ben, I looked but it did not help me For example, the simplest of these answers, anytime(), gave also integers but huge such as 1.6e+09, probably seconds. Furthermore, I did not have this problem with 2D plots, plot(), ggplot2(), — Adam, Mar 05 '21 at 00:30

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 05 '21 at 11:17

The rgl package doesn't use the same formatting functions as base graphics, so you need to format the values yourself. For example,

df <- data.frame(Date = seq(as.Date("2016-02-29"), as.Date("2019-01-01"), length=100),
                 y = rnorm(100),
                 z = rnorm(100))
library(rgl)
plot3d(df, axes = FALSE)
ticks <- pretty(df$Date, 3)
labels <- format(ticks, format = "%Y-%m")
axis3d("x", at = ticks, labels = labels) # Custom on x axis
axes3d(c("y", "z"))                      # Defaults on other axes 
box3d()

^{Created on 2021-03-05 by the reprex package (v0.3.0)}

The result of pretty() can extend beyond the range of the data, so you might want to reduce it, or change your xlim to avoid an axis extending out of range as in this picture for 2016-01.

How can I see dates plot3D in R instead of 5 - digit integers

1 Answers1