Why do geom_sf() with dotted lines look so messy?

tidyverse
,
1

Sorry, I don't come up with the good issue title..., but I wonder why these lines have uneven widths. Is this expected? Or am I doing something wrong?

library(ggplot2)

nc <- sf::st_read(system.file("shape/nc.shp", package = "sf"), quiet = TRUE)

ggplot(nc) +
  geom_sf(linetype = "dotted", size = 1.5) +
  theme_minimal()



ggplot(nc) +
  geom_sf(linetype = "dashed", size = 1.5) +
  theme_minimal()



# This seems rather OK
plot(nc$geometry, lty = 3, lwd = 3)

Created on 2018-06-04 by the reprex package (v0.2.0).

Session info 
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1 Like
2

I'm not sure why the "standard" line types display poorly, especially the "dotted" one. However, you can use linetype codes to get more control over how the lines look.

ggplot(nc) +
  geom_sf(linetype = "11", size = 1.5) +
  theme_minimal()

Rplot19
Rplot19833×420 38.9 KB

ggplot(nc) +
  geom_sf(linetype = "21", size = 1.5) +
  theme_minimal()

Rplot18
Rplot18833×420 37 KB

3 Likes
3

Wow, thanks!! I didn't know this way of specification.

4

Now I think I've figured out the problem. There are at least two problem on my code:

Problem 1) Lines are under other polygon fills

The lines and fills of polygons are drawn geometry by geometry, so it's natural that we can't see the underlying lines.
I should have drawn them independently:

library(ggplot2)
library(patchwork)

nc <- sf::st_read(system.file("shape/nc.shp", package = "sf"), quiet = TRUE)

p1 <- ggplot(nc) +
  geom_sf(linetype = "dotted", size = 1.5) +
  theme_minimal()

p2 <- ggplot(nc) +
  # draw polygon fills
  geom_sf(colour = "transparent") +
  # draw polygon lines
  geom_sf(fill = "transparent", linetype = "dotted", size = 1.5) +
  theme_minimal()

p1 / p2

Problem 2) Lines are overwrapped

The boundaries between polygons are drawn multiple times. I should have extract the boundaries and merge them beforehand (Are there easier way to do this...?):

library(sf)

nc_12 <- tibble::rownames_to_column(nc[1:2,], "id")

nc_12_merged <- nc_12 %>%
  st_boundary() %>%
  st_union() %>%
  st_line_merge() %>%
  st_sf()

p1 <- ggplot(nc_12) +
  geom_sf(aes(colour = id), fill = "transparent", linetype = "dotted", size = 4) +
  theme_minimal()

p2 <-  ggplot(nc_12_merged) +
  geom_sf(colour = "black", fill = "transparent", linetype = "dotted", size = 4) +
  theme_minimal()

p1 / p2

4 Likes