Note
How to cite netplot. If you use netplot in published work, please cite it:
Vega Yon G, Bischoff P. netplot: Beautiful Graph Drawing. doi:10.32614/CRAN.package.netplot
Run citation("netplot") in R for the BibTeX entry.
netplot is a graph visualization engine for R that emphasizes
aesthetics. Its defaults are chosen so that a single call to nplot()
produces a publication-quality figure out of the box, while still giving
you fine-grained control when you need it. It works directly with
igraph, network, and adjacency-matrix objects.
Compared with the base plot() methods in igraph and sna/network,
netplot aims to make the common case beautiful and the hard case
possible:
- Beautiful defaults. Vertices, edges, arrows, and labels are auto-scaled relative to the plotting device, so figures look right regardless of size or aspect ratio and fill the plotting area instead of floating in whitespace.
- Map data to aesthetics with formulas. Color, shape, and size
vertices (and scale edge widths) straight from graph attributes:
nplot(g, vertex.color = ~ group, vertex.nsides = ~ group, vertex.size = ~ degree). Categorical, numeric, and logical attributes are each handled sensibly, and a legend is added automatically. Seevignette("formulas"). - Smart edges. True curved edges with user-defined curvature, an embedded edge-color mixer that blends each edge between its endpoints’ colors, and edge-width/arrow scaling that respects the layout.
- Built on
grid. Because netplot draws with thegridsystem (the same engine asggplot2), plots are first-class grid objects: you can post-edit them withset_vertex_gpar()/set_edge_gpar(), arrange several withgridExtra::grid.arrange(), add gradients, and export cleanly. - Lightweight. Following the “tinyverse” philosophy, netplot leans on base R graphics facilities and keeps its dependency footprint small.
A quick feature checklist:
- Auto-scaling of vertices, edges, and labels relative to the plotting device.
- Formula interface to map colors, shapes, and sizes from graph attributes.
- Embedded edge color mixer (blends edges between endpoint colors).
- True curved edges with user-defined curvature.
- Nicer vertex frame colors and vertex shapes.
- Automatic legends and color keys.
- Gradient fills for vertices and edges.
- Better use of space, filling the plotting device.
The package uses the grid plotting system (just like ggplot2).
You can install the released version of netplot from CRAN with:
install.packages("netplot")And the development version from GitHub with:
# install.packages("devtools") devtools::install_github("USCCANA/netplot")
This is a basic example which shows you how to solve a common problem:
library(igraph) #> #> Attaching package: 'igraph' #> The following objects are masked from 'package:stats': #> #> decompose, spectrum #> The following object is masked from 'package:base': #> #> union library(netplot) #> Loading required package: grid #> #> Attaching package: 'netplot' #> The following object is masked from 'package:igraph': #> #> ego set.seed(1) data("UKfaculty", package = "igraphdata") l <- layout_with_fr(UKfaculty) #> This graph was created by an old(er) igraph version. #> ℹ Call `igraph::upgrade_graph()` on it to use with the current igraph version. #> For now we convert it on the fly... plot(UKfaculty, layout = l) # ala igraph
V(UKfaculty)$ss <- runif(vcount(UKfaculty)) nplot(UKfaculty, layout = l) # ala netplot
sna::gplot(intergraph::asNetwork(UKfaculty), coord=l)
# Random names set.seed(1) nam <- sample(babynames::babynames$name, vcount(UKfaculty)) ans <- nplot( UKfaculty, layout = l, vertex.color = ~ Group, vertex.nsides = ~ Group, vertex.label = nam, vertex.size.range = c(.01, .03, 4), bg.col = "transparent", vertex.label.show = .25, vertex.label.range = c(10, 25), edge.width.range = c(1, 4, 5), vertex.label.fontfamily = "sans" ) # Plot it! ans
Starting version 0.2-0, we can use gradients!
ans |> set_vertex_gpar( element = "core", fill = lapply(get_vertex_gpar(ans, "frame", "col")$col, \(i) { radialGradient(c("white", i), cx1=.8, cy1=.8, r1=0) }))
# Loading the data data(USairports, package="igraphdata") # Generating a layout naively layout <- V(USairports)$Position #> This graph was created by an old(er) igraph version. #> ℹ Call `igraph::upgrade_graph()` on it to use with the current igraph version. #> For now we convert it on the fly... layout <- do.call(rbind, lapply(layout, function(x) strsplit(x, " ")[[1]])) layout[] <- stringr::str_remove(layout, "^[a-zA-Z]+") layout <- matrix(as.numeric(layout[]), ncol=2) # Some missingness layout[which(!complete.cases(layout)), ] <- apply(layout, 2, mean, na.rm=TRUE) # Have to rotate it (it doesn't matter the origin) layout <- netplot:::rotate(layout, c(0,0), pi/2) # Simplifying the network net <- simplify(USairports, edge.attr.comb = list( weight = "sum", name = "concat", Passengers = "sum", "ignore" )) # Pretty graph nplot( net, layout = layout, edge.width = ~ Passengers, edge.color = ~ ego(col = "white", alpha = 0) + alter(col = "yellow", alpha = .75), skip.vertex = TRUE, skip.arrows = TRUE, edge.width.range = c(.75, 4, 4), bg.col = "black", edge.line.breaks = 10 )
