Lattice: Multivariate Data Visualization with R

by Deepayan Sarkar

Written by the author of the lattice system, this book describes lattice in considerable depth, beginning with the essentials and systematically delving into specific low levels details as necessary. No prior experience with lattice is required to read the book, although basic familiarity with R is assumed. The book contains close to 150 figures produced with lattice. Many of the examples emphasize principles of good graphical design; almost all use real data sets that are publicly available in various R packages. All code and figures in the book are also available online, along with supplementary material covering more advanced topics.

286 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 2007

Reviews

[Terran M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lattice is the “other” good graphing system for R. For better or worse, it has now largely lost out to ggplot in popularity, but it remains a solid and well-implemented alternative. Of particular interest is the fact that it offers 3d (perspective) graphs of surfaces and point clouds, which ggplot does not attempt to implement at all.

The book and the lattice software are both excellent; it gets 4 stars intead of 5 only because of the diminished importance of Lattice in the R ecosystem as of this writing.

[Kenny Daily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great reference for doing complex plotting, especially when you have categorical data and you need automatic separation for plotting. A steep learning curve made easier by great examples throughout the book. Although a bit fantastical, because real world data rarely looks that good, so a little disheartening when my plots weren't as pretty.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty dry for a straight read-through, but very useful as a reference book. One of the few times I have found dead tree to be a better than the online/inline documentation for a programming tool.