Uploaded November 2014 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
A tutorial on how to make a Parallel Coordinates graph in R, based on Chapter 7: Spotting Differences, in the book Visualize This by Nathan Yau. Disclaimer: I am not a programmer and my descriptions and terminology are probably off here and there. The viewer is encouraged to consult the original book and other sources on R on the web. The book example uses a package called Lattice but in this example a package called Plotrix was used. The command used was "bumpchart" which gives an idea of the kind of line graphs that result, in fact the book example looks like that: lots of lines going up and down across the page. But I think the best use of this graph is when only two reference points are used, two columns A and B, with a single straight line connecting points from the left to the right column, so that slopes are compared, not bumps. The book Visualize This is used as a textbook in my Information Design: Data Visualization class at San Francisco State University. In my tutorial RStudio is used as a gentler interface for design students with minimal programming experience.
A tutorial on how to make a Parallel Coordinates graph in R, based on Chapter 7: Spotting Differences, in the book Visualize This by Nathan Yau. Disclaimer: I am not a programmer and my descriptions and terminology are probably off here and there. The viewer is encouraged to consult the original book and other sources on R on the web. The book example uses a package called Lattice but in this example a package called Plotrix was used. The command used was "bumpchart" which gives an idea of the kind of line graphs that result, in fact the book example looks like that: lots of lines going up and down across the page. But I think the best use of this graph is when only two reference points are used, two columns A and B, with a single straight line connecting points from the left to the right column, so that slopes are compared, not bumps. The book Visualize This is used as a textbook in my Information Design: Data Visualization class at San Francisco State University. In my tutorial RStudio is used as a gentler interface for design students with minimal programming experience.
