PlotVis {micromapST}

A function to plot the micromapST boundary format called VisBorders

Description

The PlotVis function will plot the boundary data contained in a border group. The border group boundary information is stored as a data.frame with an "x", "y", "hole", and "key" columns. The "key" column identifies the name table entry the boundary point and polygon belongs to. The "x" and "y" are the coordinates for the boundary vertex in the polygon, and the "hole" column identifies if the polygon is a hole in the area identified by the "key". At the end of each sequence of vectex for a polygon, the first vertex and the last vertex must be the same point. This is followed by a "x" and "y" coordinates of c(NA,NA) to tell the turn off drawing and wait for the next point. It's primary purpose is to visualize boundary data that has been prepared for micromapST and assist in developing new border groups for micromapST.

Usage

PlotVis ( VisBrd, VisCol, xTitle=NULL, xAxes=FALSE, xLwd=0.05) 

Arguments

VisBrd

- is a data frame containing a VisBorders formated collection of boundaries to be plotted. Refer to the section under the discussion on the areaVisBorder data.frame and it's format. In a border group, this would be the areaVisBorder, L2VisBorder, RegVisBorder, or L3VisBorders data.frame.

VisCol

- is a vector of the colors to fill each polygon in the VisBorder data frame. One color value is required for each "NA" (end of polygon) in the VisBorders data.frame. This vector must have the same number of elements at the VisBorder has polygons (point sets ending in NA.)

If multiple polygons represent a single area, the function caller must compensate for this in the VisCol vector. The usual strategy is to assign a color to each row in the Name Table, then compare the keys in the Name Table and the keys in the VisBorder and assign the color for that Key/Polygon.

Warning: R's polygon function does not advance to the next color in this list, if the vectors between the "NA" rows represent a point or a line, R's polygon function will not advance to the next color, nothing to fill. This will affect which colors shade each polygon.

xTitle

- is character string value to be used for the title of the VisBorders plot. The default for this call parameter is NULL. Only a single string can be used.

xAxes

- is a logical (FALSE or TRUE) indicator as to whether or not the X and Y Axis should be drawn. The default for this call parameter is FALSE.

xLwd

- is a numerical value of the boundary line width to use when drawing the areas in the map. The value may range from .1 up to 3 times the standard width. The default value is 0.5.

Details

More details to follow.

Value

None

Author(s)

Jim Pearson, StatNet Consulting, LLC, Gaithersburg, MD

See Also

micromapST