How to Create a Stacked Dot Plot in R ?

A stacked dotplot is a type of plot that displays frequencies using dots, piled one over the other. Mainly 2 methods are there, to make a stacked dot plot and both of them are discussed in this article.

Method 1: Using stripchart()

So, using the first method, stripchart method, to create our stacked dot plot. For instance, if we don’t have a set of values, we can even make them, serve our purpose. We would create a set of values that would contain numbers ranging from 0 to 30, including both the ranges too, i.e., the set of values would also include 0 and 30. After creating the set of values, we would plot our stacked dotplot based on those values. We would use the function set.seed(), to reproduce a particular sequence of 'random' numbers. stripchart produces one-dimensional scatter plots (or dot plots) of the given data.
 

Syntax: stripchart(x, ...)

Example:

Output:

👁 Image

But, the dot plot which we made, is not so pleasing, like the whole stacked dotplot is somewhat above the X-axis, so now we are going to edit it a bit, to make it look more interesting.

Example:

Output:

👁 Image

Method 2: Using geom_dotplot()

In a dot plot, the width of a dot corresponds to the bin width (or maximum width, depending on the binning algorithm), and dots are stacked, with each dot representing one observation.

Syntax: geom_dotplot()

Parameter:

• dotsize:  The diameter of the dots relative to binwidth, default 1.
• stackratio: how close to stack the dots. Default is 1, where dots just touch. Use smaller values for closer, overlapping dots.
• fill: interior colour of the dots in the stack.
• color: exterior outline colour of the dots in the stack

Example:

Output:

👁 Image

Again, for this one too, we can make it a bit more interesting, adding some more parameters.

Example:

Output:

👁 Image