as_factoextra: Build a factoextra-ready object from pre-computed coordinates

In factoextra: Extract and Visualize the Results of Multivariate Data Analyses

Build a factoextra-ready object from pre-computed coordinates

Description

as_factoextra_pca() wraps pre-computed individual (and, optionally, variable) coordinates into an object that the fviz_pca family (fviz_pca_ind(), fviz_pca_var(), fviz_pca_biplot()), fviz_eig, fviz_contrib and fviz_cos2 can plot directly.

It lets you apply factoextra's visualizations to the output of any dimension-reduction method - for example stats::cmdscale(), ape::pcoa(), UMAP/t-SNE embeddings, vegan::rda()/cca(), or a custom analysis - without having to write a dedicated backend. You bring the coordinates; factoextra draws the biplot, scree plot, contributions and cos2.

Usage

as_factoextra_pca(
  ind.coord,
  var.coord = NULL,
  eig = NULL,
  ind.cos2 = NULL,
  ind.contrib = NULL,
  var.cos2 = NULL,
  var.contrib = NULL,
  var.cor = NULL,
  scale.unit = FALSE
)

Arguments

ind.coord	individual (observation) coordinates: a numeric matrix or data frame with one column per dimension (the "scores"). Required.
var.coord	optional variable coordinates / loadings: a numeric matrix or data frame with one column per dimension. Supplying it enables fviz_pca_var() and fviz_pca_biplot().
eig	optional numeric vector of eigenvalues (length \ge number of dimensions). Used by the scree plot and to label the axes with the percentage of explained variance. When NULL (default) it is set to the variance of each coordinate column (the natural definition of a PCA eigenvalue).
ind.cos2, ind.contrib, var.cos2, var.contrib, var.cor	optional pre-computed quality (cos2), contribution and (variable) correlation matrices, with the same dimensions as the corresponding coordinates. When omitted they are derived from the coordinates (see Details).
scale.unit	logical. If TRUE, the variable coordinates are treated as correlations and the correlation circle is drawn by fviz_pca_var(). Default is FALSE.

Details

When cos2/contrib are not supplied they are computed from the coordinates:

• contrib = 100 * coord^2 / colSums(coord^2) - the exact contribution of each element to each dimension.

• cos2 = coord^2 / rowSums(coord^2) - the quality of representation within the supplied dimensions. This equals the true cos2 only when all components are provided; with a truncated set of dimensions it is the quality restricted to that sub-space. Pass ind.cos2/var.cos2 explicitly if you have the exact values.

Value

An object of class c("factoextra_pca", "list") holding the standardized ind (and var) results and eigenvalues, ready for the fviz_pca_*() functions.

Author(s)

Alboukadel Kassambara [e-mail]

Examples

# 1. Bring your own coordinates: classical MDS (cmdscale) -> factoextra
d <- dist(scale(mtcars))
mds <- cmdscale(d, k = 3)
obj <- as_factoextra_pca(ind.coord = mds)
fviz_pca_ind(obj, repel = TRUE)
fviz_eig(obj)

# 2. Round-trip a prcomp result through the constructor (biplot)
pca <- prcomp(iris[, -5], scale. = TRUE)
obj2 <- as_factoextra_pca(
  ind.coord = pca$x,
  var.coord = pca$rotation,
  eig       = pca$sdev^2
)
fviz_pca_biplot(obj2, label = "var", col.ind = "steelblue")

factoextra documentation built on June 26, 2026, 5:10 p.m.