R help - Jun 2009 - distinguish regression lines in grouped, black and white lattice xyplot

Hi,

I've got the following problem which I cannot think of a solution right now:

if got a lattice xyplot in black and white and a grouping variable
with many (more than 8
values) and I plot it as regression lines (type="r"), just like this
one (not reproducable but that's
I guess not the point here):

xyplot(log(AGWB) ~ log(BM_roots), data=sub_agwb_data, groups=species,
type="r", lty=c(1:6),panel=allo.panel.5)

The problem is that I've got 26 different values for the grouping
variable species and only 6 default values for the line type
lty (and according to the par {graphics} help page customizable to up
to 8 different line types).

Does anybody have any idea how these 26 different lines can be made
distinguishable from each other without the use
of colors?

Thanks,

         Katharina

On 6/24/2009 3:28 PM, Katharina May wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've got the following problem which I cannot think of a solution right
now:
> 
> if got a lattice xyplot in black and white and a grouping variable
> with many (more than 8
> values) and I plot it as regression lines (type="r"), just like
this
> one (not reproducable but that's
> I guess not the point here):
> 
> xyplot(log(AGWB) ~ log(BM_roots), data=sub_agwb_data, groups=species,
> type="r", lty=c(1:6),panel=allo.panel.5)
> 
> The problem is that I've got 26 different values for the grouping
> variable species and only 6 default values for the line type
> lty (and according to the par {graphics} help page customizable to up
> to 8 different line types).
> 
> Does anybody have any idea how these 26 different lines can be made
> distinguishable from each other without the use
> of colors?
  If you need to distinguish individual regression lines, I would
consider 26 panels rather than attempting one panel with 26 regression
lines each of a different line type.  Something like this:

xyplot(log(AGWB) ~ log(BM_roots) | species, data=sub_agwb_data,
type="r", panel=allo.panel.5)
> Thanks,
> 
>          Katharina
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. 
-- 
Chuck Cleland, Ph.D.
NDRI, Inc. (www.ndri.org)
71 West 23rd Street, 8th floor
New York, NY 10010
tel: (212) 845-4495 (Tu, Th)
tel: (732) 512-0171 (M, W, F)
fax: (917) 438-0894

Don't be silly. They can't be made "distinguishable" by any
number of line
types and/or colors. The brain can't keep that many different symbol
representations straight. Referring back and forth to a legend is also
similarly useless. You need to think more creatively about how to make a
more meaningful display to provide viewers interpretable information.

Bert Gunter
Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics


-----Original Message-----
From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org]
On
Behalf Of Katharina May
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 12:28 PM
To: r-help at r-project.org
Subject: [R] distinguish regression lines in grouped,black and white lattice
xyplot

Hi,

I've got the following problem which I cannot think of a solution right now:

if got a lattice xyplot in black and white and a grouping variable
with many (more than 8
values) and I plot it as regression lines (type="r"), just like this
one (not reproducable but that's
I guess not the point here):

xyplot(log(AGWB) ~ log(BM_roots), data=sub_agwb_data, groups=species,
type="r", lty=c(1:6),panel=allo.panel.5)

The problem is that I've got 26 different values for the grouping
variable species and only 6 default values for the line type
lty (and according to the par {graphics} help page customizable to up
to 8 different line types).

Does anybody have any idea how these 26 different lines can be made
distinguishable from each other without the use
of colors?

Thanks,

         Katharina

______________________________________________
R-help at r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

Perhaps:

x <- 1:26
xyplot(x ~ x, groups = x, pch = letters, col = rainbow(26))


On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 3:28 PM, Katharina
May<may.katharina at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've got the following problem which I cannot think of a solution right
now:
>
> if got a lattice xyplot in black and white and a grouping variable
> with many (more than 8
> values) and I plot it as regression lines (type="r"), just like
this
> one (not reproducable but that's
> I guess not the point here):
>
> xyplot(log(AGWB) ~ log(BM_roots), data=sub_agwb_data, groups=species,
> type="r", lty=c(1:6),panel=allo.panel.5)
>
> The problem is that I've got 26 different values for the grouping
> variable species and only 6 default values for the line type
> lty (and according to the par {graphics} help page customizable to up
> to 8 different line types).
>
> Does anybody have any idea how these 26 different lines can be made
> distinguishable from each other without the use
> of colors?
>
> Thanks,
>
> ? ? ? ? Katharina
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>