Easiest way to plot inequalities with hatched fill? - plot

Question

Refer to the above plot. I have drawn the equations in excel and then shaded by hand. You can see it is not very neat. You can see there are six zones, each bounded by two or more equations. What is the easiest way to draw inequalities and shade the regions using hatched patterns ?

Answer 1

To build up on #agstudy's answer, here's a quick-and-dirty way to represent inequalities in R:
plot(NA,xlim=c(0,1),ylim=c(0,1), xaxs="i",yaxs="i") # Empty plot
a <- curve(x^2, add = TRUE) # First curve
b <- curve(2*x^2-0.2, add = TRUE) # Second curve
names(a) <- c('xA','yA')
names(b) <- c('xB','yB')
with(as.list(c(b,a)),{
id <- yB<=yA
# b<a area
polygon(x = c(xB[id], rev(xA[id])),
y = c(yB[id], rev(yA[id])),
density=10, angle=0, border=NULL)
# a>b area
polygon(x = c(xB[!id], rev(xA[!id])),
y = c(yB[!id], rev(yA[!id])),
density=10, angle=90, border=NULL)
})
If the area in question is surrounded by more than 2 equations, just add more conditions:
plot(NA,xlim=c(0,1),ylim=c(0,1), xaxs="i",yaxs="i") # Empty plot
a <- curve(x^2, add = TRUE) # First curve
b <- curve(2*x^2-0.2, add = TRUE) # Second curve
d <- curve(0.5*x^2+0.2, add = TRUE) # Third curve
names(a) <- c('xA','yA')
names(b) <- c('xB','yB')
names(d) <- c('xD','yD')
with(as.list(c(a,b,d)),{
# Basically you have three conditions:
# curve a is below curve b, curve b is below curve d and curve d is above curve a
# assign to each curve coordinates the two conditions that concerns it.
idA <- yA<=yD & yA<=yB
idB <- yB>=yA & yB<=yD
idD <- yD<=yB & yD>=yA
polygon(x = c(xB[idB], xD[idD], rev(xA[idA])),
y = c(yB[idB], yD[idD], rev(yA[idA])),
density=10, angle=0, border=NULL)
})

Answer 2

In R, there is only limited support for fill patterns and they can only be
applied to rectangles and polygons.This is and only within the traditional graphics, no ggplot2 or lattice.
It is possible to fill a rectangle or polygon with a set of lines drawn
at a certain angle, with a specific separation between the lines. A density
argument controls the separation between the lines (in terms of lines per inch)
and an angle argument controls the angle of the lines.
here an example from the help:
plot(c(1, 9), 1:2, type = "n")
polygon(1:9, c(2,1,2,1,NA,2,1,2,1),
density = c(10, 20), angle = c(-45, 45))
EDIT
Another option is to use alpha blending to differentiate between regions. Here using #plannapus example and gridBase package to superpose polygons, you can do something like this :
library(gridBase)
vps <- baseViewports()
pushViewport(vps$figure,vps$plot)
with(as.list(c(a,b,d)),{
grid.polygon(x = xA, y = yA,gp =gpar(fill='red',lty=1,alpha=0.2))
grid.polygon(x = xB, y = yB,gp =gpar(fill='green',lty=2,alpha=0.2))
grid.polygon(x = xD, y = yD,gp =gpar(fill='blue',lty=3,alpha=0.2))
}
)
upViewport(2)

Answer 3

There are several submissions on the MATLAB Central File Exchange that will produce hatched plots in various ways for you.

Answer 4

I think a tool that will come handy for you here is gnuplot.
Take a look at the following demos:
feelbetween
statistics
some tricks