drop_data: Drop unused data in the plot

In thisplot: Utility Functions for Plotting

Drop unused data in the plot

Description

Drop unused data points from a ggplot or patchwork object while preserving the plot structure. This function keeps only a single row of data for each unique combination of used variables, which can significantly reduce the object size when the original data contains many rows that are not displayed in the plot (e.g., due to scale limits or filtering).

Usage

drop_data(p)

## S3 method for class 'ggplot'
drop_data(p)

## S3 method for class 'patchwork'
drop_data(p)

## Default S3 method:
drop_data(p)

Arguments

p	A ggplot object or a patchwork object.

Value

A ggplot or patchwork object with unused data points removed.

Examples

library(ggplot2)
library(patchwork)
p <- ggplot(
  data = mtcars,
  aes(x = mpg, y = wt, colour = cyl)
) +
  geom_point() +
  scale_x_continuous(limits = c(10, 30)) +
  scale_y_continuous(limits = c(1, 6))
object.size(p)

p_drop <- drop_data(p)
object.size(p_drop)

p / p_drop

thisplot documentation built on March 7, 2026, 5:07 p.m.