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This post shows how to build a 3d scatterplot with R and the rgl package. It provides the reproducible code and makes it easy to apply it to your own dataset.
Building a 3d scatterplot requires a dataset with 3 numeric variables, each being used on an axis. Here, the famous iris dataset is used.
The rgl package comes with the plot3d() function that is pretty close from the base R plot() function. Instead of providing just an x and a y argument, you also have to provide the z coordinate.
Note that the output is interactive by default. If you have X11 or a similar tool installed, you should be able to rotate the chart for a better user experience. A few command line are also provided in case you want to export the chart at .html, .png or .Rmd format.
# library
library(rgl)
# This is to output a rgl plot in a rmarkdown document. Note that you must add webgl=TRUE, results='hide' in the chunck header
#library(knitr)
#knit_hooks$set(webgl = hook_webgl)
# Data: the iris data is provided by R
data <- iris
# Add a new column with color
mycolors <- c('royalblue1', 'darkcyan', 'oldlace')
data$color <- mycolors[ as.numeric(data$Species) ]
# Plot
par(mar=c(0,0,0,0))
plot3d(
x=data$`Sepal.Length`, y=data$`Sepal.Width`, z=data$`Petal.Length`,
col = data$color,
type = 's',
radius = .1,
xlab="Sepal Length", ylab="Sepal Width", zlab="Petal Length")
writeWebGL( filename="HtmlWidget/3dscatter.html" , width=600, height=600)Related chart types