R: Path Drawing

polypath {graphics} | R Documentation

## Path Drawing

### Description

`path` draws a path whose vertices are given in `x` and `y`.

### Usage

    polypath(x, y = NULL,
             border = NULL, col = NA, lty = par("lty"),
             rule = "winding", ...)

### Arguments

`x, y` | vectors containing the coordinates of the vertices of the path.
`col` | the color for filling the path. The default, `NA`, is to leave paths unfilled, unless `density` is specified. (For back-compatibility, `NULL` is equivalent to `NA`.) If `density` is specified with a positive value this gives the color of the shading lines.
`border` | the color to draw the border. The default, `NULL`, means to use `par("fg")`. Use `border = NA` to omit borders. For compatibility with S, `border` can also be logical, in which case `FALSE` is equivalent to `NA` (borders omitted) and `TRUE` is equivalent to `NULL` (use the foreground colour),
`lty` | the line type to be used, as in `par`.
`rule` | character value specifying the path fill mode: either `"winding"` or `"evenodd"`.
`...` | graphical parameters such as `xpd`, `lend`, `ljoin` and `lmitre` can be given as arguments.

### Details

The coordinates can be passed in a plotting structure (a list with `x` and `y` components), a two-column matrix, .... See `xy.coords`.

It is assumed that the path is to be closed by joining the last point to the first point.

The coordinates can contain missing values. The behaviour is similar to that of `polygon`, except that instead of breaking a polygon into several polygons, `NA` values break the path into several sub-paths (including closing the last point to the first point in each sub-path). See the examples below.

The distinction between a path and a polygon is that the former can contain holes, as interpreted by the fill rule; these fill a region if the path border encircles it an odd or non-zero number of times, respectively.

Hatched shading (as implemented for `polygon()`) is not (currently) supported.

Not all graphics devices support this function: for example `xfig` and `pictex` do not.

### References

Becker, R. A., Chambers, J. M. and Wilks, A. R. (1988) The New S Language. Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole.

Murrell, P. (2005) R Graphics. Chapman & Hall/CRC Press.

### See Also

`segments` for even more flexibility, `lines`, `rect`, `box`, `polygon`.

`par` for how to specify colors.

### Examples

    plotPath <- function(x, y, col = "grey", rule = "winding") {
        plot.new()
        plot.window(range(x, na.rm = TRUE), range(y, na.rm = TRUE))
        polypath(x, y, col = col, rule = rule)
        if (!is.na(col))
            mtext(paste("Rule:", rule), side = 1, line = 0)
    }

    plotRules <- function(x, y, title) {
        plotPath(x, y)
        plotPath(x, y, rule = "evenodd")
        mtext(title, side = 3, line = 0)
        plotPath(x, y, col = NA)
    }

    op <- par(mfrow = c(5, 3), mar = c(2, 1, 1, 1))

    plotRules(c(.1, .1, .9, .9, NA, .2, .2, .8, .8),
              c(.1, .9, .9, .1, NA, .2, .8, .8, .2),
              "Nested rectangles, both clockwise")
    plotRules(c(.1, .1, .9, .9, NA, .2, .8, .8, .2),
              c(.1, .9, .9, .1, NA, .2, .2, .8, .8),
              "Nested rectangles, outer clockwise, inner anti-clockwise")
    plotRules(c(.1, .1, .4, .4, NA, .6, .9, .9, .6),
              c(.1, .4, .4, .1, NA, .6, .6, .9, .9),
              "Disjoint rectangles")
    plotRules(c(.1, .1, .6, .6, NA, .4, .4, .9, .9),
              c(.1, .6, .6, .1, NA, .4, .9, .9, .4),
              "Overlapping rectangles, both clockwise")
    plotRules(c(.1, .1, .6, .6, NA, .4, .9, .9, .4),
              c(.1, .6, .6, .1, NA, .4, .4, .9, .9),
              "Overlapping rectangles, one clockwise, other anti-clockwise")

    par(op)

[Package graphics version 4.0.5 Index]