R Data Visualisation Examples - 3D scatter plots

R Data Viz Example using R Base function

Demo dataset to be used for a plot.

# load a built in dataset e.g. mtcars
head(iris, 10)

##    Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species
## 1           5.1         3.5          1.4         0.2  setosa
## 2           4.9         3.0          1.4         0.2  setosa
## 3           4.7         3.2          1.3         0.2  setosa
## 4           4.6         3.1          1.5         0.2  setosa
## 5           5.0         3.6          1.4         0.2  setosa
## 6           5.4         3.9          1.7         0.4  setosa
## 7           4.6         3.4          1.4         0.3  setosa
## 8           5.0         3.4          1.5         0.2  setosa
## 9           4.4         2.9          1.4         0.2  setosa
## 10          4.9         3.1          1.5         0.1  setosa

# Prepare the data set
x <- iris$Sepal.Length
y <- iris$Sepal.Width
z <- iris$Petal.Length
grps <- as.factor(iris$Species) 

Basic plots

# Plot
library(scatterplot3d)
scatterplot3d(x, y, z, pch = 19)
grid()

# Change color by groups
# add grids and remove the box around the plot
# Change axis labels: xlab, ylab and zlab
colors <- c("green", "blue", "red")
scatterplot3d(x, y, z, pch = 16, color = colors[grps],
              grid = TRUE, box = FALSE, xlab = "Sepal length", 
              ylab = "Sepal width", zlab = "Petal length")
grid()