Summary

In this chapter, we set up your installation of R and made sure that you are ready to start creating the ggplot2 plots. You saw the different packages available to realize plots in R and their history and relations. The graphics package is the first package that was developed in R; it represents a simple and effective tool to realize plots. Subsequently, the grid package was introduced with more advanced control of the plot elements as well as more advanced graphics functionalities. Several packages were then built on top of grid, in particular lattice and ggplot2, providing high-level functions for advanced data representation. In the next chapter, we will explore some important plot types that can be realized with ggplot2. You will also be introduced to faceting.