animate_topo: Topographic map animation in time

In diegr: Dynamic and Interactive EEG Graphics

Topographic map animation in time

Description

Display a topographic animation of the change in amplitude over time. The function enables direct rendering in Rstudio Viewer or saving the animation in gif format to the chosen location.

Usage

animate_topo(
  data,
  amplitude,
  t_lim,
  FS = 250,
  t0 = 1,
  mesh,
  coords = NULL,
  template = NULL,
  col_range = NULL,
  col_scale = NULL,
  show_legend = TRUE,
  contour = FALSE,
  output_path = NULL,
  ...
)

Arguments

data	An input data frame or tibble with at least this required columns: time - the number of time point, sensor - the sensor label and the column with the EEG amplitude to plot specified in the argument amplitude.
amplitude	A character specifying the name of the column from input data with EEG amplitude values.
t_lim	A numeric vector of length 2 with limits of time points (i.e., the length of the timeline displayed below the animation).
FS	The sampling frequency. Default value is 250 Hz.
t0	Index of the zero time point, i.e. point, where 0 ms should be marked (most often time of the stimulus or time of the response).
mesh	A "mesh" object (or a named list with the same structure) containing at least D2 element with x and y coordinates of a point mesh used for computing IM model. If not defined, the point mesh with default settings from point_mesh function is used.
coords	Sensor coordinates as a tibble or data frame with named x, y columns of sensor coordinates and sensor column with sensor names. If not defined, the HCGSN256 template is used.
template	The kind of sensor template montage used. Currently the only available option is "HCGSN256" denoting the 256-channel HydroCel Geodesic Sensor Net v.1.0, which is also a default setting.
col_range	A vector with minimum and maximum value of the amplitude used in the colour palette for plotting. If not defined, the range of interpolated signal is used.
col_scale	Optionally, a colour scale to be utilised for plotting. If not defined, it is computed from col_range.
show_legend	Logical. Indicates, whether legend should be displayed beside the graph. Default value is TRUE.
contour	Logical. Indicates, whether contours should be plotted in the graph. Default value is FALSE.
output_path	File path where the animation will be saved using gifski renderer (optional). If not defined, the animation is plotted in the RStudio Viewer.
...	Additional parameters for animation according to gganimate::animate.

Details

For more details about required mesh structure see point_mesh function. If the input mesh structure does not match this format, an error or incorrect function behavior may occur.

The time part of input data is assumed to be in numbers of time points, conversion to ms takes place inside the function for drawing the timeline labels. Due to the flexibility of the function (e.g. to mark and animate only a short section from the entire time course or to compare different data in the same time interval), it allows to enter and plot user-defined time ranges. If some values of the time are outside the t_lim range, the function writes a warning message - in that case the animation is still rendered, but the timeline will not match reality.

Note: When specifying the coords and template at the same time, the template parameter takes precedence and the coords parameter is ignored.

Value

If output_path is NULL, the function prints the animation to the RStudio Viewer. If output_path is specified, the animation is saved to the given file path and not displayed.

See Also

topo_plot

Examples

# This example may take a few seconds to render.
# Run only if you want to generate the full animation.
# Prepare a data structure:
s1e05 <- epochdata |> dplyr::filter(subject == 1 & epoch == 5 & time %in% c(10:20))
# Plot animation
# t0 = 10 indicates the time point of stimulus in epochdata,
# t_lim is the whole range of epochdata, we animate only a short period
animate_topo(s1e05, amplitude = "signal", t_lim = c(1,50), t0 = 10)

diegr documentation built on Nov. 5, 2025, 5:25 p.m.