In R, how can I tell if the scales on a ggplot object are log or linear? - r

Question

I have many ggplot objects where I wish to print some text (varies from plot to plot) in the same relative position on each plot, regardless of scale. What I have come up with to make it simple is to
define a rescale function (call it sx) to take the relative position I want and return that position on the plot's x axis.
sx <- function(pct, range=xr){
position <- range[1] + pct*(range[2]-range[1])
}
make the plot without the text (call it plt)
Use the ggplot_build function to find the x scale's range
xr <- ggplot_build(plt)$layout$panel_params[[1]]$x.range
Then add the text to the plot
plt <- plt + annotate("text", x=sx(0.95), ....)
This works well for me, though I'm sure there are other solutions folks have derived. I like the solution because I only need to add one step (step 3) to each plot. And it's a simple modification to the annotate command (x goes to sx(x)).
If someone has a suggestion for a better method I'd like to hear about it. There is one thing about my solution though that gives me a little trouble and I'm asking for a little help:
My problem is that I need a separate function for log scales, (call it lx). It's a bit of a pain because every time I want to change the scale I need to modify the annotate commands (change sx to lx) and occasionally there are many. This could easily be solved in the sx function if there was a way to tell what the type of scale was. For instance, is there a parameter in ggplot_build objects that describe the log/lin nature of the scale? That seems to be the best place to find it (that's where I'm pulling the scale's range) but I've looked and can not figure it out. If there was, then I could add a command to step 3 above to define the scale type, and add a tag to the sx function in step 1. That would save me some tedious work.
So, just to reiterate: does anyone know how to tell the scaling (type of scale: log or linear) of a ggplot object? such as using the ggplot_build command's object?

Answer 1

Suppose we have a list of pre-build plots:
linear <- ggplot(iris, aes(Sepal.Width, Sepal.Length, colour = Species)) +
geom_point()
log <- linear + scale_y_log10()
linear <- ggplot_build(linear)
log <- ggplot_build(log)
plotlist <- list(a = linear, b = log)
We can grab information about their position scales in the following way:
out <- lapply(names(plotlist), function(i) {
# Grab plot, panel parameters and scales
plot <- plotlist[[i]]
params <- plot$layout$panel_params[[1]]
scales <- plot$plot$scales$scales
# Only keep (continuous) position scales
keep <- vapply(scales, function(x) {
inherits(x, "ScaleContinuousPosition")
}, logical(1))
scales <- scales[keep]
# Grab relevant transformations
out <- lapply(scales, function(scale) {
data.frame(position = scale$aesthetics[1],
# And now for the actual question:
transformation = scale$trans$name,
plot = i)
})
out <- do.call(rbind, out)
# Grab relevant ranges
ranges <- params[paste0(out$position, ".range")]
out$min <- sapply(ranges, `[`, 1)
out$max <- sapply(ranges, `[`, 2)
out
})
out <- do.call(rbind, out)
Which will give us:
out
position transformation plot min max
1 x identity a 1.8800000 4.520000
2 y identity a 4.1200000 8.080000
3 y log-10 b 0.6202605 0.910835
4 x identity b 1.8800000 4.520000
Or if you prefer a straightforward answer:
log$plot$scales$scales[[1]]$trans$name
[1] "log-10"