Italic greek letters / latex-style math in plot titles - r

I'd like to create latex-style math in plot titles in R. The plotmath tools have a useful but limited subset of expressions they can display, and use non-latex syntax and style.
For instance, I would like to print the equation $\mathrm{d} \mathbf{x} = a [\theta - \mathbf{x}] \mathrm{d} t$ in the title of the plot, and still evaluate the value of certain variables. The best solution I have is the very cumbersome:
lambda <- 4
plot(1:10,1:10)
mtext(bquote(paste(d*bolditalic(x)[italic(t)] == alpha*(theta - bolditalic(x)[italic(t)] )*d*italic(t) + .(lambda) * d * italic(B)[italic(t)] )), line=2.25,cex=2)
or
require(ggplot2)
qplot(1:10, 1:10) + opts(title=bquote(paste(d*bolditalic(x)[italic(t)] == alpha*(theta - bolditalic(x)[italic(t)] )*d*italic(t) + .(lambda) * d * italic(B)[italic(t)] )), line=2.25,cex=2)
This question almost solves this, but I loose the ability of bquote to display the numerical value of a variable (lambda in my example). Is there a way to combine these so I can have italic greek letters (the standard format for variables, e.g. as done by tex) and evaluate at specific values?
Is there a much better way where I can simple write tex-syntax for equations and add them to my graphs?

You may want to check out the tikzDevice package (or take a look at its vignette first), which provides a natural way to write LaTeX math in R graphics.
I also have a simple example here.
And here is another example:
library(tikzDevice)
library(ggplot2)
tikz('math.tex', standAlone = TRUE, width = 4, height = 4)
qplot(1:10, 1:10,
main = '$\\mathrm{d} \\mathbf{x} = a [\\theta - \\mathbf{x}] \\mathrm{d} t$')
dev.off()
which produces this if you run pdflatex math.tex:

You should edit your question rather than putting sub-comments (I'll see what I can do about the box.). I sometimes find that bquote only reaches down so deep and that you need to use substitute. This works:
lambda <- 4
plot(1:10,1:10)
mtext(substitute(paste(d*bolditalic(x)[italic(t)] ==
alpha*group("[", (theta - bolditalic(x)[italic(t)] )*d*italic(t) +
lambda, "]") * d * italic(B)[italic(t)] ), list(lambda=lambda)),
line=2.25,cex=2)
It also works with ggplot and the title placement looks a lot better:
qplot(1:10, 1:10) + opts(title=substitute(paste(d*bolditalic(x)[italic(t)] ==
alpha*(theta - bolditalic(x)[italic(t)] )*d*italic(t) +
lambda * d * italic(B)[italic(t)] ), list(lambda=lambda)),
line=2.25,cex=2)
The "d" is "square" at least as I understand your meaning after referring to a set of Latex examples online at:
http://www.personal.ceu.hu/tex/cookbook.html
(I thought you wanted the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Alembert_operator and was not able to find that yet.)

Related

Adding greek character and asterisk (*) to axis title

I want to add a greek character to the x-axis of my histogram plot in R.
I can write the greek character alone or with the hat, but the problem is that I need this character to be come with a hat and asterisk () together. More specifically, I want the something like hat(phi^). Here is what I have done:
x = rnorm(1000)
hist( x, nclass = 100, cex.lab=1.5, xlab = expression(hat(phi^*)),
ylab="Frequency", main="", cex.axis=1.5 )
Thanks.
What about using ggplot2 instead of base R. You can then use latex2exp::TeX to use (some) LaTeX expressions in the axes labels.
set.seed(2018)
x = rnorm(1000)
library(ggplot2)
library(latex2exp)
ggplot(data.frame(x = x), aes(x)) +
geom_histogram(bins = 100) +
theme_minimal() +
xlab(TeX("$\\widehat{\\phi^*}$"))
You need to escape the backslashes with an extra backslash and wrap math expressions inside $ delimiters (just as in regular LaTeX inline math). I used \widehat{}, but you can also use hat{} instead.
Here is the best looking solution that I found:
hist( x, nclass = 100, cex.lab=1.5, xlab = expression(hat(phi)~"*"),
ylab="Frequency", main="", cex.axis=1.5 )
To get the star under the hat, I don't know of any nice looking solution with base plot functions. I think #Maurits Evers' method is the best compromise between complexity and prettiness of the result.
But here is anyway a more "advanced" (and maybe a little bit over the top, but well...) solution. It is based on this blog post: http://iltabiai.github.io/tips/latex/2015/09/15/latex-tikzdevice-r.html
To make it work, you will need to install the tikzDevice package.
First, load the packages and create the data-set.
library(tikzDevice)
library(ggplot2)
dat <- data.frame(x = rnorm(1000))
Then create a TeX file that will contain the "translation" of your R plot in "tikz" language.
tikz(file = "plot_test.tex", width = 5, height = 5, standAlone = TRUE)
ggplot(dat, aes(x = x)) +
geom_histogram(color="white") + theme_bw() +
labs( x = "$\\widehat{\\phi^*}$")
dev.off()
Then, you can either directly copy or call the LaTeX code into your own LaTeX document (then the standAlone=TRUE argument is not necessary), or you can use these two very useful function to generate a pdf version and see the result.
tools::texi2dvi("plot_test.tex", pdf=TRUE)
system(paste(getOption('pdfviewer'), "plot_test.pdf"))

How can I use latex code in R plot? [duplicate]

I would like to add LaTeX typesetting to elements of plots in R (e.g: the title, axis labels, annotations, etc.) using either the combination of base/lattice or with ggplot2.
Questions:
Is there a way to get LaTeX into plots using these packages, and if so, how is it done?
If not, are there additional packages needed to accomplish this.
For example, in Python matplotlib compiles LaTeX via the text.usetex packages as discussed here: http://www.scipy.org/Cookbook/Matplotlib/UsingTex
Is there a similar process by which such plots can be generated in R?
The CRAN package latex2exp contains a TeX function that translate LaTeX formulas to R's plotmath expressions. You can use it anywhere you could enter mathematical annotations, such as axis labels, legend labels, and general text.
For example:
x <- seq(0, 4, length.out=100)
alpha <- 1:5
plot(x, xlim=c(0, 4), ylim=c(0, 10),
xlab='x', ylab=TeX(r'($\alpha x^\alpha$, where $\alpha \in \{1 \ldots 5\}$)'),
type='n', main=TeX(r'(Using $\LaTeX$ for plotting in base graphics!)', bold=TRUE))
for (a in alpha) {
lines(x, a*x^a, col=a)
}
legend('topleft',
legend=TeX(sprintf(r'($\alpha = %d$)', alpha)),
lwd=1,
col=alpha)
produces this plot.
Here's an example using ggplot2:
q <- qplot(cty, hwy, data = mpg, colour = displ)
q + xlab(expression(beta +frac(miles, gallon)))
As stolen from here, the following command correctly uses LaTeX to draw the title:
plot(1, main=expression(beta[1]))
See ?plotmath for more details.
You can generate tikz code from R:
http://r-forge.r-project.org/projects/tikzdevice/
Here's something from my own Lab Reports.
tickzDevice exports tikz images for LaTeX
Note, that in certain cases "\\" becomes "\" and "$" becomes "$\" as in the following R code: "$z\\frac{a}{b}$" -> "$\z\frac{a}{b}$\"
Also xtable exports tables to latex code
The code:
library(reshape2)
library(plyr)
library(ggplot2)
library(systemfit)
library(xtable)
require(graphics)
require(tikzDevice)
setwd("~/DataFolder/")
Lab5p9 <- read.csv (file="~/DataFolder/Lab5part9.csv", comment.char="#")
AR <- subset(Lab5p9,Region == "Forward.Active")
# make sure the data names aren't already in latex format, it interferes with the ggplot ~ # tikzDecice combo
colnames(AR) <- c("$V_{BB}[V]$", "$V_{RB}[V]$" , "$V_{RC}[V]$" , "$I_B[\\mu A]$" , "IC" , "$V_{BE}[V]$" , "$V_{CE}[V]$" , "beta" , "$I_E[mA]$")
# make sure the working directory is where you want your tikz file to go
setwd("~/TexImageFolder/")
# export plot as a .tex file in the tikz format
tikz('betaplot.tex', width = 6,height = 3.5,pointsize = 12) #define plot name size and font size
#define plot margin widths
par(mar=c(3,5,3,5)) # The syntax is mar=c(bottom, left, top, right).
ggplot(AR, aes(x=IC, y=beta)) + # define data set
geom_point(colour="#000000",size=1.5) + # use points
geom_smooth(method=loess,span=2) + # use smooth
theme_bw() + # no grey background
xlab("$I_C[mA]$") + # x axis label in latex format
ylab ("$\\beta$") + # y axis label in latex format
theme(axis.title.y=element_text(angle=0)) + # rotate y axis label
theme(axis.title.x=element_text(vjust=-0.5)) + # adjust x axis label down
theme(axis.title.y=element_text(hjust=-0.5)) + # adjust y axis lable left
theme(panel.grid.major=element_line(colour="grey80", size=0.5)) +# major grid color
theme(panel.grid.minor=element_line(colour="grey95", size=0.4)) +# minor grid color
scale_x_continuous(minor_breaks=seq(0,9.5,by=0.5)) +# adjust x minor grid spacing
scale_y_continuous(minor_breaks=seq(170,185,by=0.5)) + # adjust y minor grid spacing
theme(panel.border=element_rect(colour="black",size=.75))# border color and size
dev.off() # export file and exit tikzDevice function
Here's a cool function that lets you use the plotmath functionality, but with the expressions stored as objects of the character mode. This lets you manipulate them programmatically using paste or regular expression functions. I don't use ggplot, but it should work there as well:
express <- function(char.expressions){
return(parse(text=paste(char.expressions,collapse=";")))
}
par(mar=c(6,6,1,1))
plot(0,0,xlim=sym(),ylim=sym(),xaxt="n",yaxt="n",mgp=c(4,0.2,0),
xlab="axis(1,(-9:9)/10,tick.labels,las=2,cex.axis=0.8)",
ylab="axis(2,(-9:9)/10,express(tick.labels),las=1,cex.axis=0.8)")
tick.labels <- paste("x >=",(-9:9)/10)
# this is what you get if you just use tick.labels the regular way:
axis(1,(-9:9)/10,tick.labels,las=2,cex.axis=0.8)
# but if you express() them... voila!
axis(2,(-9:9)/10,express(tick.labels),las=1,cex.axis=0.8)
I did this a few years ago by outputting to a .fig format instead of directly to a .pdf; you write the titles including the latex code and use fig2ps or fig2pdf to create the final graphic file. The setup I had to do this broke with R 2.5; if I had to do it again I'd look into tikz instead, but am including this here anyway as another potential option.
My notes on how I did it using Sweave are here: http://www.stat.umn.edu/~arendahl/computing
I just have a workaround. One may first generate an eps file, then convert it back to pgf using the tool eps2pgf. See http://www.texample.net/tikz/examples/eps2pgf/
h <- rnorm(mean = 5, sd = 1, n = 1000)
hist(h, main = expression(paste("Sampled values, ", mu, "=5, ", sigma,
"=1")))
Taken from a very help article here https://stats.idre.ucla.edu/r/codefragments/greek_letters/
You can use the following, for example:
title(sub=TeX(sprintf(paste("Some latex symbols are ", r'(\lambda)', "and", r'(\alpha)'))))
Just remember to enclose LaTeX expressions in paste() using r'()'
You can also add named objects in the paste() function. E.g.,
lambda_variable <- 3
title(sub=TeX(sprintf(paste(r'(\lambda=)', lambda_variable))))
Not sure if there are better ways to do this, but the above worked for me :)

Combining `expression()` with `\n`

I have a ggplot where I have used expression(phantom(x) >=80) in the label text to get a proper greater-than-or-equal symbol.
However I also need to have (N=...) immediately underneath:
require(ggplot2)
.d <- data.frame(a = letters[1:6], y = 1:6)
labs <- c("0-9\n(N=10)","10-29\n(N=10)","30-49\n(N=10)", +
"50-64\n(N=10)","65-79\n(N=10)", expression(phantom(x) >=80))
ggplot(.d, aes(x=a,y=y)) + geom_point() +
scale_x_discrete(labels = labs)
How can I combine the expression() with the escape \n ?
As #otsaw said in his answer to your earlier question, plotmath (and therefore expression) doesn't allow linebreaks.
However, as a hack, you can use atop to let ≥80 appears on top of (N=10). But as you will soon see it doesn't match with the other labels:
labs <- c("0-9\n(N=10)","10-29\n(N=10)","30-49\n(N=10)",
"50-64\n(N=10)","65-79\n(N=10)",
expression(atop(phantom(x) >=80, (N==10))))
So, as a further hack, you can pass the other labels as expressions:
labs <- c(expression(atop(0-9,(N==10))),expression(atop(10-29,(N==10))),
expression(atop(30-49,(N==10))), expression(atop(50-64,(N==10))),
expression(atop(65-79,(N==10))), expression(atop(phantom(x) >=80, (N==10))))
But of course you have #otsaw solution (using Unicode) that is considerably less wordy:
labs <- c("0-9\n(N=10)","10-29\n(N=10)","30-49\n(N=10)",
"50-64\n(N=10)","65-79\n(N=10)",
"\u2265 80\n(N=10)")
Another approach would be to use the recently archived tikzDevice. This creates the plots as tikz which are latex friendly format.
This will allow you to pass any latex expression as a character string to your labels.
It has the added benefit that you can compile the documents with the same preamble as your whole document so that the fonts etc are consistent.
All this can be automated using knitr using opts_chunk$set(dev = 'tikz')

Write x̄ (meaning average) in legend and how to prevent linebreak?

Good day!
I am not that familiar to R so I'd be glad to get a little help.
Assume I have the following minimal example:
test <- c(10,20,40,80,80)
avg <- mean(test)
avg <- format(avg,digits=2)
plot(test, xlab="x", ylab="y", pch = 4)
legend("topleft", legend= c("Average: ", avg))
I'd like to write x̄ instead of "average" - wonder if this is event possible as it's not a regular symbol - merely a combination of two (letter plus overline).
The other thing I'd like to get rid of is the line break after the word "Average (see arrow in graphic below):
There are two issues here. The first is that this is handled using ?plotmath in R. The operator you are looking for is bar(). This is not a function but markup that plotmath understands.
The second is that you need an expression in which avg is converted to its value. You need an expression because that is what plotmath works with. There are several solutions to this problem, but the one I use below is bquote(). You provide it an expression and anything wrapped in .( ) will be converted its value by evaluating the thing inside the .( ).
Here is your code and a suitably modified legend() call:
test <- c(10,20,40,80,80)
avg <- mean(test)
avg <- format(avg,digits=2)
plot(test, xlab="x", ylab="y", pch = 4)
legend("topleft", legend = bquote(bar(x)*":" ~ .(avg)))
Do note that this will insert exactly what is in avg. You may need to do
avg <- round(avg)
or some other formatting fix to get something nice and presentable.

Getting LaTeX into R Plots

I would like to add LaTeX typesetting to elements of plots in R (e.g: the title, axis labels, annotations, etc.) using either the combination of base/lattice or with ggplot2.
Questions:
Is there a way to get LaTeX into plots using these packages, and if so, how is it done?
If not, are there additional packages needed to accomplish this.
For example, in Python matplotlib compiles LaTeX via the text.usetex packages as discussed here: http://www.scipy.org/Cookbook/Matplotlib/UsingTex
Is there a similar process by which such plots can be generated in R?
The CRAN package latex2exp contains a TeX function that translate LaTeX formulas to R's plotmath expressions. You can use it anywhere you could enter mathematical annotations, such as axis labels, legend labels, and general text.
For example:
x <- seq(0, 4, length.out=100)
alpha <- 1:5
plot(x, xlim=c(0, 4), ylim=c(0, 10),
xlab='x', ylab=TeX(r'($\alpha x^\alpha$, where $\alpha \in \{1 \ldots 5\}$)'),
type='n', main=TeX(r'(Using $\LaTeX$ for plotting in base graphics!)', bold=TRUE))
for (a in alpha) {
lines(x, a*x^a, col=a)
}
legend('topleft',
legend=TeX(sprintf(r'($\alpha = %d$)', alpha)),
lwd=1,
col=alpha)
produces this plot.
Here's an example using ggplot2:
q <- qplot(cty, hwy, data = mpg, colour = displ)
q + xlab(expression(beta +frac(miles, gallon)))
As stolen from here, the following command correctly uses LaTeX to draw the title:
plot(1, main=expression(beta[1]))
See ?plotmath for more details.
You can generate tikz code from R:
http://r-forge.r-project.org/projects/tikzdevice/
Here's something from my own Lab Reports.
tickzDevice exports tikz images for LaTeX
Note, that in certain cases "\\" becomes "\" and "$" becomes "$\" as in the following R code: "$z\\frac{a}{b}$" -> "$\z\frac{a}{b}$\"
Also xtable exports tables to latex code
The code:
library(reshape2)
library(plyr)
library(ggplot2)
library(systemfit)
library(xtable)
require(graphics)
require(tikzDevice)
setwd("~/DataFolder/")
Lab5p9 <- read.csv (file="~/DataFolder/Lab5part9.csv", comment.char="#")
AR <- subset(Lab5p9,Region == "Forward.Active")
# make sure the data names aren't already in latex format, it interferes with the ggplot ~ # tikzDecice combo
colnames(AR) <- c("$V_{BB}[V]$", "$V_{RB}[V]$" , "$V_{RC}[V]$" , "$I_B[\\mu A]$" , "IC" , "$V_{BE}[V]$" , "$V_{CE}[V]$" , "beta" , "$I_E[mA]$")
# make sure the working directory is where you want your tikz file to go
setwd("~/TexImageFolder/")
# export plot as a .tex file in the tikz format
tikz('betaplot.tex', width = 6,height = 3.5,pointsize = 12) #define plot name size and font size
#define plot margin widths
par(mar=c(3,5,3,5)) # The syntax is mar=c(bottom, left, top, right).
ggplot(AR, aes(x=IC, y=beta)) + # define data set
geom_point(colour="#000000",size=1.5) + # use points
geom_smooth(method=loess,span=2) + # use smooth
theme_bw() + # no grey background
xlab("$I_C[mA]$") + # x axis label in latex format
ylab ("$\\beta$") + # y axis label in latex format
theme(axis.title.y=element_text(angle=0)) + # rotate y axis label
theme(axis.title.x=element_text(vjust=-0.5)) + # adjust x axis label down
theme(axis.title.y=element_text(hjust=-0.5)) + # adjust y axis lable left
theme(panel.grid.major=element_line(colour="grey80", size=0.5)) +# major grid color
theme(panel.grid.minor=element_line(colour="grey95", size=0.4)) +# minor grid color
scale_x_continuous(minor_breaks=seq(0,9.5,by=0.5)) +# adjust x minor grid spacing
scale_y_continuous(minor_breaks=seq(170,185,by=0.5)) + # adjust y minor grid spacing
theme(panel.border=element_rect(colour="black",size=.75))# border color and size
dev.off() # export file and exit tikzDevice function
Here's a cool function that lets you use the plotmath functionality, but with the expressions stored as objects of the character mode. This lets you manipulate them programmatically using paste or regular expression functions. I don't use ggplot, but it should work there as well:
express <- function(char.expressions){
return(parse(text=paste(char.expressions,collapse=";")))
}
par(mar=c(6,6,1,1))
plot(0,0,xlim=sym(),ylim=sym(),xaxt="n",yaxt="n",mgp=c(4,0.2,0),
xlab="axis(1,(-9:9)/10,tick.labels,las=2,cex.axis=0.8)",
ylab="axis(2,(-9:9)/10,express(tick.labels),las=1,cex.axis=0.8)")
tick.labels <- paste("x >=",(-9:9)/10)
# this is what you get if you just use tick.labels the regular way:
axis(1,(-9:9)/10,tick.labels,las=2,cex.axis=0.8)
# but if you express() them... voila!
axis(2,(-9:9)/10,express(tick.labels),las=1,cex.axis=0.8)
I did this a few years ago by outputting to a .fig format instead of directly to a .pdf; you write the titles including the latex code and use fig2ps or fig2pdf to create the final graphic file. The setup I had to do this broke with R 2.5; if I had to do it again I'd look into tikz instead, but am including this here anyway as another potential option.
My notes on how I did it using Sweave are here: http://www.stat.umn.edu/~arendahl/computing
I just have a workaround. One may first generate an eps file, then convert it back to pgf using the tool eps2pgf. See http://www.texample.net/tikz/examples/eps2pgf/
h <- rnorm(mean = 5, sd = 1, n = 1000)
hist(h, main = expression(paste("Sampled values, ", mu, "=5, ", sigma,
"=1")))
Taken from a very help article here https://stats.idre.ucla.edu/r/codefragments/greek_letters/
You can use the following, for example:
title(sub=TeX(sprintf(paste("Some latex symbols are ", r'(\lambda)', "and", r'(\alpha)'))))
Just remember to enclose LaTeX expressions in paste() using r'()'
You can also add named objects in the paste() function. E.g.,
lambda_variable <- 3
title(sub=TeX(sprintf(paste(r'(\lambda=)', lambda_variable))))
Not sure if there are better ways to do this, but the above worked for me :)

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