R help - Sep 2006 - colorRamp

Hi,

I am using colorRamp in the following way.  I am *sure* there is a  
better way to do this, so if you'd be so kind to show me the true R way:

Step 0: Create a new variable, say, "x", that maps some other  
continuous variable I have onto the [0,1] line.
Step 1:  Store the result from colorRamp (a function), into, say,
"test"

 > test <- colorRamp(mypalette)

Step 2:  In my data frame, "data"

 > data$colorTemp <- test(data$x)

Step 3: Write a new function

bob <- function(temp) { rgb(temp[1],temp[2],temp[3],maxColorValue=255) }

Step 4:

 > for (i in 1:dim(data)[1]) data[i,"color"] <- bob(data[i,  
"colorTemp"])

Step 5:

map("states", region=data$region, fill=T, col=data$color)

Thanks in advance!
Rick

> I am using colorRamp in the following way.  I am *sure* there is a
> better way to do this, so if you'd be so kind to show me the true R
way:
>
Another possibility is to use map_colour_gradient from ggplot, which
takes care of most of that for you (although it doesn't use colorRamp,
that could be easily fixed)

Hadley