Dot Plots in ggplot2

How to make Dot Plots in ggplot2 with Plotly.

New to Plotly?

Plotly is a free and open-source graphing library for R. We recommend you read our Getting Started guide for the latest installation or upgrade instructions, then move on to our Plotly Fundamentals tutorials or dive straight in to some Basic Charts tutorials.

Default dotplot

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot()

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

Increase dot size

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binwidth = 1.5)

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

Using fixed-width bins.

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(method="histodot", binwidth = 1.5)

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

Various stack methods

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binwidth = 1.5, stackdir = "center")

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binwidth = 1.5, stackdir = "centerwhole")

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

Hiding y axis

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) + geom_dotplot(binwidth = 1.5) +
  scale_y_continuous(NULL, breaks = NULL)

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

Overlapping dots vertically

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binwidth = 1.5, stackratio = .7)

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

Expanding dot diameter

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binwidth = 1.5, dotsize = 1.25)

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

Changing fill colour and stroke witdth

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binwidth = 1.5, fill = "white", stroke = 2)

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

Stacking along y axis

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = 1, y = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y", stackdir = "center")

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = factor(cyl), y = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y", stackdir = "center")

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = factor(cyl), y = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y", stackdir = "centerwhole")

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

Changing colour with dodge position

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = factor(vs), fill = factor(cyl), y = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y", stackdir = "center", position = "dodge")

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

Aligning bins between groups

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = factor(am), y = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y", stackdir = "center", binpositions="all")

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

Stacking groups with different fill

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg, fill = factor(cyl))) +
  geom_dotplot(stackgroups = TRUE, binwidth = 1, binpositions = "all")

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg, fill = factor(cyl))) +
  geom_dotplot(stackgroups = TRUE, binwidth = 1, method = "histodot")

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

Flip plot orientation

library(plotly)

p <-    
 ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = 1, y = mpg, fill = factor(cyl))) +
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y", stackgroups = TRUE, binwidth = 1, method = "histodot")

plotly::ggplotly(p)
 Click to copy

What About Dash?

Dash for R is an open-source framework for building analytical applications, with no Javascript required, and it is tightly integrated with the Plotly graphing library.

Learn about how to install Dash for R at https://dashr.plot.ly/installation.

Everywhere in this page that you see fig, you can display the same figure in a Dash for R application by passing it to the figure argument of the Graph component from the built-in dashCoreComponents package like this:

library(plotly)

fig <- plot_ly() 
# fig <- fig %>% add_trace( ... )
# fig <- fig %>% layout( ... ) 

library(dash)
library(dashCoreComponents)
library(dashHtmlComponents)

app <- Dash$new()
app$layout(
    htmlDiv(
        list(
            dccGraph(figure=fig) 
        )
     )
)

app$run_server(debug=TRUE, dev_tools_hot_reload=FALSE)
 Click to copy