Save Incremental Builds of Plots

Saves a 'ggplot' object into multiple files, each with a layer added incrementally. Generally to be used in presentation slides. Flexible enough to allow different file types for the final complete plot, and intermediate builds.

ggbuildr

ggbuildr is a simple tool for saving incremental "builds" of a ggplot object. Intended use-case is to save plots for presentation slides.

Installation

To install from GitHub:

# Currently only available as development version from Github
# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("jongbinjung/ggbuildr")

Usage

library(ggplot2)
library(ggbuildr)

set.seed(1)
X <- rnorm(20)
Y <- X + rnorm(20)

pd <- data.frame(X, Y)
p <- ggplot(pd, aes(X, Y)) +
  geom_smooth() +
  geom_point(shape = 21, size = 2,
             fill = "white", color = "black") +
  # Fixing the limits ensure plot ranges are constant
  coord_cartesian(xlim = c(-2.5, 2), ylim = c(-4, 4))

# Plot smooth, and then point
build_plot(p, build_order = list(1, 2))

# Plot point, and then smooth, but preserve order (i.e, keep points on top)
build_plot(p, build_order = list(2, 1))

# Plot point, and then smooth, and draw smooth layer on top of point
build_plot(p, build_order = list(2, 1), preserve_order = FALSE)