Quick start

The viridis package in R is an extension of the ggplot2 package, designed to simplify the process of creating visually appealing color maps. It offers a set of color maps that are perceptually uniform in color and brightness, making them ideal for use in data visualization.

✍️ author → Simon Garnier

📘 documentation → Github

⭐️ more than 250 stars on github

Installation

To get started with viridis, you can install it directly from CRAN using the install.packages function:

install.packages("viridis")

Basic usage

The viridis package is very easy to use. Start by loading it with library(viridis), and then you can use the color palettes in your plots!

library(viridis)
colors = viridis(3)

# basic plot
library(ggplot2)
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = wt, y = mpg, color = factor(cyl))) +
  geom_point(size = 6) +
  scale_color_manual(values = colors) +
  theme_minimal()

Key features

→ Combine ggplot2 and Viridis

The viridis package is an extension of the ggplot2 package, which means you can use it to customize the color of your plots.

It provides scale_color_viridis() and scale_fill_viridis() functions that allow you to use the viridis color palettes in your plots.

Example:

# load libraries
library(viridis)
library(ggplot2)

# create dataframe
dsub <- subset(diamonds, x > 5 & x < 6 & y > 5 & y < 6)
dsub$diff <- with(dsub, sqrt(abs(x - y)) * sign(x - y))

# create plot with Turbo color palette
ggplot(dsub, aes(x, y, colour = diff)) +
  geom_point() +
  scale_color_viridis(option='turbo') +
  theme_minimal()

→ Beautiful filled.contour

The filled.contour() function is a base R function that creates a filled contour plot. You can use the color.palette argument to specify a color palette from the viridis package.

Example:

library(viridis)
x <- y <- seq(-8*pi, 8*pi, len = 40)
r <- sqrt(outer(x^2, y^2, "+"))
filled.contour(
  cos(r^2)*exp(-r/(2*pi)), 
  axes=FALSE,
  color.palette=magma,
  asp=1
)

→ Use Viridis with lattice

The viridis package can be used with the lattice package to create beautiful plots. You can use the colorkey argument to specify a color palette from the viridis package.

Example:

library(viridis)
library(lattice)
levelplot(volcano, col.regions = mako(100))

Gallery of Viridis examples

The gallery is filled with examples that showcase the versatility of the viridis package. Each example is designed to help you understand how to use custom colors in your plots.

Level plot

Learn how to build a level plot with lattice