Episode 8: Visualization With `Ggplot2`

Posted on Wednesday, Jun 20, 2012 | Category: Podcast

I’m happy to present this jam-packed episode of the R-Podcast dedicated to using the ggplot2 package for visualization. This episode will have a companion screencast released in the next few days. I use data from the Hockey Summary Project to demonstrate how to create a series of boxplots of NHL regular season attendance for each team. The R code used in this episode will be available via GitHub. I also extend my thanks to the Going Linux podcast for plugging the R-Podcast. If you are interested in providing a listener tip about R, please call the voicemail hotline at +1-269-849-9780 or record an audio clip and send it tothe Rcast(at)gmail.com. Please keep the wonderful feedback coming and hope you enjoy this episode!

Show Notes

• Screencast available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L08YA4eJiUo
• The Going Linux Podcast: http://www.goinglinux.com
• Hockey Summary Project: http://hsp.flyershistory.com/
• Plot Code on GitHub: https://github.com/thercast/nhl_analysis/blob/master/src/plot_demo_code.R
• The R Inferno: http://www.burns-stat.com/pages/Tutor/R_inferno.pdf
• Cookbook for R by Winston Chang: http://wiki.stdout.org/rcookbook
• ggplot2 0.90 Transition Guide: http://cloud.github.com/downloads/hadley/ggplot2/guide-col.pdf
• ggplot2 online reference: http://had.co.nz/ggplot2/
• ggplot2 GitHub wiki: https://github.com/hadley/ggplot2/wiki/
• ggplot2 blog: http://blog.ggplot2.org/
• ggplot2 mailing list: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/ggplot2
• Kaplan-Meier Survival Plot with ggplot2: http://mcfromnz.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/kaplan-meier-survival-plot-with-at-risk-table/
• Learning R Series: http://learnr.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/ggplot2-version-of-figures-in-lattice-multivariate-data-visualization-with-r-part-1/
• Code A La Mode ggplot2 articles: http://codealamode.blogspot.com/search/label/ggplot2
• ggplot2 textbook by Hadley Wickham: http://tinyurl.com/ggplot2-book
• Theme music provided by WillRock from the Return All Robots Remix Album at ocremix.org
• The closing theme is entitled “The Way” and provided by Jewbei from the Wild Arms: ARMed and Dangerous album at ocremix.org

Episode 8 Time Stamps

00:00 The R-Podcast #008 Visualization with ggplot2
00:34 Introduction
01:45 Thank you Going Linux
05:01 Listener feedback
14:14 ggplot2 background and philosophy
23:00 Description of data
30:20 Setting up our plot with ggplot function
38:15 Adding boxplot layer
44:31 Customizing appearance
60:35 Facet by era
67:02 Making code reproducible
73:03 Helpful ggplot2 resources
85:30 Wrapping up: subscribe to the podcast, theRcast@gmail.com, + 1-269-849-9780, Twitter @theRcast
89:29 End

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