Interactive plotting with the manipulate package

During exploratory data analysis, it is often useful to play with the parameters of a graphic. This can be done, of course, in the R console by repeatedly executing the same command and changing the graphical parameters. RStudio includes the manipulate package, that facilitates altering parameters of the current plot.

The manipulate function

The most important function of the manipulate package is manipulate. The value of the first argument of the manipulate function must be an expression or function that generates a plot. Various arguments can be added to define custom sliders, buttons, checkboxes, or pickers (drop-down menus) that are to be used in a small user interface (a manipulator) to manipulate a graphic. The following is an example of a manipulator:

library(manipulate)

manipulate(
 plot( Length ~ Rings, data=abalone
 	, axes = axes
 	, cex = cex
 	, pch = if(pch) 19 else 1
 	)
 , axes = checkbox(TRUE, "Show axes")
 , cex = slider...