Size of borders in geom_polygon() does not work with small values?

tidyverse
1

Hi together,

I hope this is not a silly and already answered question but I couldn't find any solution until now. When plotting a polygon using ggplot2 I can easily define the properties (e.g. colour, size) of the border via geom_polygon(colour = "red", size = 2). But when I set the size values to have very thin borders (let's say 10^-2 or smaller), there is no effective change in the border size and from what I tested so far it is not a matter of the resolution. Is there any explanation for that?

Example code:

usa <- map_data("usa")
ggplot() + geom_polygon(data = usa, aes(x=long, y = lat, group = group), colour = "red", size = 0.5)
ggplot() + geom_polygon(data = usa, aes(x=long, y = lat, group = group), colour = "red", size = 0.005)
ggplot() + geom_polygon(data = usa, aes(x=long, y = lat, group = group), colour = "red", size = 0.00005)

Thanks for your help and all the best,
Cédric

2

Maybe I misunderstand the question, but aren't tiny changes in size indistinguishable with standard, granular screen resolutions?

Here's a discussion on size in ggplot "ggplot2 Quick Reference: size". It mentions that size is in absolute terms. A size of 0.00005 is probably indistinguishable from zero on your computer screen.

1 Like
3

Hi EconomiCurtis, thanks for your feedback! I was also thinking about a resolution issue but I cannot even see a difference going from 0.05 to 0.005 to 0.0005 (pages 2 to 5 here: https://document.li/6j6m; unfortunately, I cannot upload attachments). Isn't there any way to have tiny borders for? If I wrap them to a facet, the maps are 95% white and 5% filling (despite saving the map in very high resolution).

4

I think 0.05 to 0.005 to 0.0005 are too small to see any change.
If that ggplot2 Quick Reference: size link above is approximately correct, "A size of 1 corresponds to approximately 0.75 mm".
And so size = 0.05 is 0.0375mm.
On an iPhone or retina mac, a pixel is 0.09652mm. So your line thickness is less than half a retina pixel.

As with so many things in life, I think you're just going to want to play with it until you get 'er looking right.

Here's a few options I messed with:

#setup
library(maps);library(dplyr);library(ggplot2)
usa <- map_data("usa")

#too small

usa %>% ggplot() + 
  geom_polygon(
    aes(x=long, y = lat, group = group), colour = "red", 
    size = 0.001)

image

#too big

usa %>% ggplot() + geom_polygon(
  aes(x=long, y = lat, group = group), colour = "red", 
  size = 1)

image

#nice looking...?

usa %>% ggplot() + geom_polygon(
  aes(x=long, y = lat, group = group), colour = "red", 
  size = 0.15)

image

1 Like
5

You got to check out reprex
If you make a plot, it'll automatically upload your plot to imgur and save a community-post-friendly code snippet to your clipboard, linking to imgur, ready to paste into community (or SO or github)!

Use devtools::install_github("tidyverse/reprex") for now, but the nice version of reprex is coming to CRAN very soon.

1 Like
6

Thanks again for your effort and tips! Regarding my border size issue, the only option seems to increase resolution (as you also nicely explained). I thought I might miss something...
And I will definitely check out that reprex package, looks awesome :+1: