geom_dotplot: Dot plot

In hadley/ggplot2: Create Elegant Data Visualisations Using the Grammar of Graphics

Dot plot

Description

In a dot plot, the width of a dot corresponds to the bin width (or maximum width, depending on the binning algorithm), and dots are stacked, with each dot representing one observation.

Usage

geom_dotplot(
  mapping = NULL,
  data = NULL,
  position = "identity",
  ...,
  binwidth = NULL,
  binaxis = "x",
  method = "dotdensity",
  binpositions = "bygroup",
  stackdir = "up",
  stackratio = 1,
  dotsize = 1,
  stackgroups = FALSE,
  origin = NULL,
  right = TRUE,
  width = 0.9,
  drop = FALSE,
  na.rm = FALSE,
  show.legend = NA,
  inherit.aes = TRUE
)

Arguments

mapping	Set of aesthetic mappings created by aes(). If specified and inherit.aes = TRUE (the default), it is combined with the default mapping at the top level of the plot. You must supply mapping if there is no plot mapping.
data	The data to be displayed in this layer. There are three options: If NULL, the default, the data is inherited from the plot data as specified in the call to ggplot(). A data.frame, or other object, will override the plot data. All objects will be fortified to produce a data frame. See fortify() for which variables will be created. A function will be called with a single argument, the plot data. The return value must be a data.frame, and will be used as the layer data. A function can be created from a formula (e.g. ~ head(.x, 10)).
position	A position adjustment to use on the data for this layer. This can be used in various ways, including to prevent overplotting and improving the display. The position argument accepts the following: The result of calling a position function, such as position_jitter(). This method allows for passing extra arguments to the position. A string naming the position adjustment. To give the position as a string, strip the function name of the position_ prefix. For example, to use position_jitter(), give the position as "jitter". For more information and other ways to specify the position, see the layer position documentation.
...	Other arguments passed on to layer()'s params argument. These arguments broadly fall into one of 4 categories below. Notably, further arguments to the position argument, or aesthetics that are required can not be passed through .... Unknown arguments that are not part of the 4 categories below are ignored. Static aesthetics that are not mapped to a scale, but are at a fixed value and apply to the layer as a whole. For example, colour = "red" or linewidth = 3. The geom's documentation has an Aesthetics section that lists the available options. The 'required' aesthetics cannot be passed on to the params. Please note that while passing unmapped aesthetics as vectors is technically possible, the order and required length is not guaranteed to be parallel to the input data. When constructing a layer using a ⁠stat_*()⁠ function, the ... argument can be used to pass on parameters to the geom part of the layer. An example of this is stat_density(geom = "area", outline.type = "both"). The geom's documentation lists which parameters it can accept. Inversely, when constructing a layer using a ⁠geom_*()⁠ function, the ... argument can be used to pass on parameters to the stat part of the layer. An example of this is geom_area(stat = "density", adjust = 0.5). The stat's documentation lists which parameters it can accept. The key_glyph argument of layer() may also be passed on through .... This can be one of the functions described as key glyphs, to change the display of the layer in the legend.
binwidth	When method is "dotdensity", this specifies maximum bin width. When method is "histodot", this specifies bin width. Defaults to 1/30 of the range of the data
binaxis	The axis to bin along, "x" (default) or "y"
method	"dotdensity" (default) for dot-density binning, or "histodot" for fixed bin widths (like stat_bin)
binpositions	When method is "dotdensity", "bygroup" (default) determines positions of the bins for each group separately. "all" determines positions of the bins with all the data taken together; this is used for aligning dot stacks across multiple groups.
stackdir	which direction to stack the dots. "up" (default), "down", "center", "centerwhole" (centered, but with dots aligned)
stackratio	how close to stack the dots. Default is 1, where dots just touch. Use smaller values for closer, overlapping dots.
dotsize	The diameter of the dots relative to binwidth, default 1.
stackgroups	should dots be stacked across groups? This has the effect that position = "stack" should have, but can't (because this geom has some odd properties).
origin	When method is "histodot", origin of first bin
right	When method is "histodot", should intervals be closed on the right (a, b], or not [a, b)
width	When binaxis is "y", the spacing of the dot stacks for dodging.
drop	If TRUE, remove all bins with zero counts
na.rm	If FALSE, the default, missing values are removed with a warning. If TRUE, missing values are silently removed.
show.legend	logical. Should this layer be included in the legends? NA, the default, includes if any aesthetics are mapped. FALSE never includes, and TRUE always includes. It can also be a named logical vector to finely select the aesthetics to display. To include legend keys for all levels, even when no data exists, use TRUE. If NA, all levels are shown in legend, but unobserved levels are omitted.
inherit.aes	If FALSE, overrides the default aesthetics, rather than combining with them. This is most useful for helper functions that define both data and aesthetics and shouldn't inherit behaviour from the default plot specification, e.g. annotation_borders().

Details

There are two basic approaches: dot-density and histodot. With dot-density binning, the bin positions are determined by the data and binwidth, which is the maximum width of each bin. See Wilkinson (1999) for details on the dot-density binning algorithm. With histodot binning, the bins have fixed positions and fixed widths, much like a histogram.

When binning along the x axis and stacking along the y axis, the numbers on y axis are not meaningful, due to technical limitations of ggplot2. You can hide the y axis, as in one of the examples, or manually scale it to match the number of dots.

Computed variables

These are calculated by the 'stat' part of layers and can be accessed with delayed evaluation.

• after_stat(x)
  center of each bin, if binaxis is "x".

• after_stat(y)
  center of each bin, if binaxis is "x".

• after_stat(binwidth)
  maximum width of each bin if method is "dotdensity"; width of each bin if method is "histodot".

• after_stat(count)
  number of points in bin.

• after_stat(ncount)
  count, scaled to a maximum of 1.

• after_stat(density)
  density of points in bin, scaled to integrate to 1, if method is "histodot".

• after_stat(ndensity)
  density, scaled to maximum of 1, if method is "histodot".

Aesthetics

geom_dotplot() understands the following aesthetics. Required aesthetics are displayed in bold and defaults are displayed for optional aesthetics:

•	x
•	y
•	alpha	→ NA
•	colour	→ via theme()
•	fill	→ via theme()
•	group	→ inferred
•	linetype	→ via theme()
•	stroke	→ via theme()
•	weight	→ 1
•	width	→ 0.9

Learn more about setting these aesthetics in vignette("ggplot2-specs").

References

Wilkinson, L. (1999) Dot plots. The American Statistician, 53(3), 276-281.

Examples

ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot()

ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binwidth = 1.5)

# Use fixed-width bins
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(method="histodot", binwidth = 1.5)

# Some other stacking methods
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binwidth = 1.5, stackdir = "center")

ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binwidth = 1.5, stackdir = "centerwhole")

# y axis isn't really meaningful, so hide it
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) + geom_dotplot(binwidth = 1.5) +
  scale_y_continuous(NULL, breaks = NULL)

# Overlap dots vertically
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binwidth = 1.5, stackratio = .7)

# Expand dot diameter
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binwidth = 1.5, dotsize = 1.25)

# Change dot fill colour, stroke width
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binwidth = 1.5, fill = "white", stroke = 2)


# Examples with stacking along y axis instead of x
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = 1, y = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y", stackdir = "center")

ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = factor(cyl), y = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y", stackdir = "center")

ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = factor(cyl), y = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y", stackdir = "centerwhole")

ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = factor(vs), fill = factor(cyl), y = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y", stackdir = "center", position = "dodge")

# binpositions="all" ensures that the bins are aligned between groups
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = factor(am), y = mpg)) +
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y", stackdir = "center", binpositions="all")

# Stacking multiple groups, with different fill
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg, fill = factor(cyl))) +
  geom_dotplot(stackgroups = TRUE, binwidth = 1, binpositions = "all")

ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg, fill = factor(cyl))) +
  geom_dotplot(stackgroups = TRUE, binwidth = 1, method = "histodot")

ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = 1, y = mpg, fill = factor(cyl))) +
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y", stackgroups = TRUE, binwidth = 1, method = "histodot")

hadley/ggplot2 documentation built on June 13, 2025, 12:51 a.m.