ggpattern

ggpattern provides custom ggplot2 geoms which support filled areas with geometric and image-based patterns.

Reading the articles/vignettes on the package website is probably the best way to get started.

Feature Summary

• Custom versions of (almost) all the geoms from ggplot2 which have a region which can be filled.
• A suite of aesthetics for controlling the pattern appearance (e.g. pattern_alpha)
• The ability to include user-defined patterns

Installation

You can install the development version from R-universe

install.packages('ggpattern', repos = c('https://trevorld.r-universe.dev', 'https://cloud.r-project.org'))

or straight from the source hosted on Github using the {remotes} package:

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("trevorld/ggpattern")

You can install the CRAN release version using:

install.packages("ggpattern")

Do note though that due to CRAN size limitations the CRAN version omits several vignettes that are contained in the development version (as well as on the package website.

An installation error is highly unlikely to be an issue with {ggpattern} itself. Please don't open up a Github Issues unless you are sure it is an issue with {ggpattern} itself. If you have an error installing the package we strongly suggest that you look at all your error messages more closely to figure out which package dependency is failing to install and why. See https://thomasadventure.blog/posts/install-r-packages/ for more info on installing R packages.

Quickstart

1. Take an existing plot which contains a geom with a fillable area e.g geom_col().
2. Use the {ggpattern} version of the geom e.g. ggpattern::geom_col_pattern() instead of ggplot2::geom_col()
3. Set the aesthetic pattern to your choice of pattern e.g pattern = 'stripe', and set other options using pattern_* aesthetics

df <- data.frame(level = c("a", "b", "c", 'd'), outcome = c(2.3, 1.9, 3.2, 1))

ggplot(df) +
  geom_col_pattern(
    aes(level, outcome, pattern_fill = level), 
    pattern = 'stripe',
    fill    = 'white',
    colour  = 'black'
  ) +
  theme_bw(18) +
  theme(legend.position = 'none') + 
  labs(
    title    = "ggpattern::geom_col_pattern()",
    subtitle = "pattern = 'stripe'"
  ) +
  coord_fixed(ratio = 1/2)

Gallery

Feature Details

Available Geoms

ggpattern includes versions of (nearly) all geoms from ggplot2 which could plausibly support being filled with a pattern.

See the vignette galleries for examples of all the available geoms filled with geometry-based patterns and image-based/array-based patterns.

Click to show/hide list of supported geoms

ggplot2	ggpattern
geom_area	geom_area_pattern
geom_bar	geom_bar_pattern
geom_bin2d	geom_bin2d_pattern
geom_boxplot	geom_boxplot_pattern
geom_col	geom_col_pattern
geom_crossbar	geom_crossbar_pattern
geom_density	geom_density_pattern
geom_histogram	geom_histogram_pattern
geom_map	geom_map_pattern
geom_polygon	geom_polygon_pattern
geom_rect	geom_rect_pattern
geom_ribbon	geom_ribbon_pattern
geom_sf	geom_sf_pattern
geom_tile	geom_tile_pattern
geom_violin	geom_violin_pattern

New aesthetics

To control pattern appearance, a raft of new aesthetics have been added. e.g. pattern_alpha, pattern_filename, pattern_density.

There are also scale functions to control each of these new aesthetics e.g. scale_pattern_alpha_discrete.

Not all aesthetics apply to all patterns. See the individual pattern vignettes for which aesthetics it uses, or see the first vignette on developing user-defined patterns for a table of aesthetic use by pattern, or see the individual vignettes for each pattern.

Click to show/hide list of new aesthetics

aesthetic	description	default	possible values
pattern	Name of the pattern to draw	'stripe'	stripe, crosshatch, circle, image, placeholder, magick, gradient, plasma
pattern_type	Generic control option	NA	pattern-dependent
pattern_subtype	Generic control option	NA	pattern-dependent
pattern_alpha	Alpha	1	value in range [0, 1] (npc units)
pattern_linetype	Stroke linetype	1	linetype
pattern_size	Stroke linewidth	1	linewidth
pattern_shape	Plotting shape	1	shapes
pattern_colour	Stroke colour	'grey20'	colour
pattern_fill	Fill colour	'grey80'	colour
pattern_fill2	Second fill colour	'#4169E1'	colour
pattern_angle	Rotation angle	30	angle in degrees
pattern_density	Approx. fraction of area the pattern fills	0.2	value in range [0, 1] (fraction)
pattern_spacing	Spacing between repetitions of pattern	0.05	value in range [0, 1] (npc units)
pattern_xoffset	Shift pattern along x axis	0	value in range [0, 1] (npc units)
pattern_yoffset	Shift pattern along y axis	0	value in range [0, 1] (npc units)
pattern_aspect_ratio	Aspect ratio adjustment	NA	usual range [0.01, 10]
pattern_key_scale_factor	Scale factor for pattern in legend	1
pattern_filename	Image filename/URL	''	Filename/URL
pattern_gravity	Image placement	'center'	ggpattern::magick_gravity_names
pattern_filter	Image scaling filter	'lanczos'	ggpattern::magick_filter_names
pattern_scale	Scale	1	Multiplier
pattern_orientation	Orientation	'vertical'	'vertical', 'horizontal', 'radial'
pattern_phase	Phase	0
pattern_frequency	Frequency	0.1
pattern_option_1 - 5	Generic options for expansion	0
pattern_grid	Grid type	'square'	'square', 'hex', 'hex_circle'
pattern_res	Pattern resolution (pixels per inch)	NA	Resolution
pattern_rot	Shape rotation angle (within pattern)	0	angle in degrees

User-Defined Patterns

Users can write their own pattern functions and ask ggpattern to use them, without having to include the pattern in the package.

See the vignette on developing patterns: vignette("developing-patterns", package = "ggpattern").

Vignettes

Note: due to CRAN package size limits many of these vignettes are only available in the Github version of {ggpattern} and the package website.

General examples

• Examples of every geom filled with the geometry-based patterns (i.e. 'stripe', 'crosshatch', 'circle'): vignette("geom-gallery-geometry", package = "ggpattern")
• Examples of every geom filled with the array-based patterns (i.e. 'image', 'magick', 'gradient', 'plasma', 'placeholder'): vignette("geom-gallery-geometry", package = "ggpattern")

Exploration of pattern parameters and appearance

• Patterns 'circle', 'pch', 'regular_polygon', 'rose' - Parameters and Examples: vignette("patterns-points", package = "ggpattern")

• Patterns 'gradient', 'ambient', 'plasma' - Parameters and Examples: vignette("patterns-noise", package = "ggpattern")

• Patterns 'image' and 'placeholder' - Parameters and Examples: vignette("patterns-image", package = "ggpattern")

• Patterns 'magick' and 'polygon_tiling' - Parameters and Examples: vignette("patterns-tilings", package = "ggpattern")

• Patterns 'stripe', 'wave', 'crosshatch', 'weave' - Parameters and Examples: vignette("patterns-stripes", package = "ggpattern")

• Parameters for Geometry-based Patterns: vignette("geometry-based-pattern-parameters", package = "ggpattern")

Developing your own pattern

• Developing Patterns: vignette("developing-patterns", package = "ggpattern")

Other examples

• Animating Patterns with {gganimate}: vignette("gganimate", package = "ggpattern")
• Creating the Logo in R: vignette("create-logo", package = "ggpattern")

Limitations

• Use pattern_aspect_ratio to override the internal aspect ratio calculation.
• Legend rendering for patterns is still not great.
  • Use pattern_key_scale_factor to adjust legend appearance.
• The Rstudio output device can be quite slow for plots with lots of patterns. It is often faster to save directly to PNG or PDF and view that.
• Self intersecting geometry can be an issue.
• Non-linear coordinate systems have not been tested.