plot_globe: Plot hexagonized globe

In hexify: Equal-Area Hex Grids on the 'Snyder' 'ISEA' 'Icosahedron'

Plot hexagonized globe

Description

Renders a global hexagonal grid on an orthographic projection with customizable rotation, land clipping, and styling options.

Usage

plot_globe(
  area = 50000,
  center = "europe",
  clip_to_land = FALSE,
  land_data = NULL,
  exclude_antarctica = TRUE,
  fill = "#D4B896",
  border = "grey30",
  border_width = 0.2,
  ocean_fill = "white",
  ocean_border = "grey50",
  show_land = clip_to_land,
  land_fill = NA,
  land_border = "grey40",
  land_width = 0.3,
  use_ggplot = NULL,
  return_data = FALSE,
  aperture = 3L
)

Arguments

area	Cell area in km^2 (passed to hex_grid)
center	Globe center: either a preset name (e.g., "europe") or numeric vector c(lon, lat). See globe_centers for presets.
clip_to_land	If TRUE, clip hexagons to land boundaries
land_data	Optional sf object for land boundaries. If NULL and clip_to_land is TRUE, uses rnaturalearth::ne_countries()
exclude_antarctica	If TRUE, exclude Antarctica from land clipping
fill	Fill color for hexagons (default "#D4B896")
border	Border color for hexagons (default "grey30")
border_width	Border width for hexagons (default 0.2)
ocean_fill	Fill color for ocean/globe background (default "white")
ocean_border	Border color for globe circle (default "grey50")
show_land	If TRUE, show land boundaries (default TRUE when clipping)
land_fill	Fill color for land (default NA, transparent)
land_border	Border color for land boundaries (default "grey40")
land_width	Border width for land boundaries (default 0.3)
use_ggplot	NULL = auto-detect, TRUE = force ggplot2, FALSE = force base
return_data	If TRUE, return sf objects instead of plotting
aperture	Grid aperture (default 3L)

Details

The function handles several technical challenges:

• Hexagons on the back side of the globe fail to transform - these are filtered out gracefully

• Invalid geometries after projection are repaired with st_buffer(0)

• Clipping is done in orthographic CRS to avoid topology errors

Value

If use_ggplot = TRUE: ggplot2 object (can add layers with +) If use_ggplot = FALSE: NULL invisibly (plots directly) If return_data = TRUE: list of sf objects (hexagons, land, ocean_circle, crs)

See Also

globe_centers for available presets, grid_global for generating global grids without plotting

Examples

# Get data for custom plotting (no rendering)
data <- plot_globe(area = 100000, center = "europe", return_data = TRUE)
nrow(data$hexagons)
class(data$ocean_circle)

# Basic usage - Europe-centered globe
plot_globe(area = 80000, center = "europe")

hexify documentation built on March 1, 2026, 1:07 a.m.