Change whitespace around R ggplots from grid layout engine

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In R, the graphics engine adds whitespace around plots that are printed if they do not fill up the size of the container. Considerable code examples are provided in this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/47703716/3330437

and I repeat some of them here:

g <- ggplot(animals, aes(x = "", y = Freq, fill = Species)) +
  geom_bar(width = 1, stat = "identity") +
  coord_polar("y", start=0) +
  theme(plot.background = element_rect(fill = "lightblue"))

library(grid)
grob <- ggplotGrob(g)
grid.newpage()
grid.draw(grob)

image of whitespace around plot

I am wondering if there is any way that, rather than whitespace, this filler space can be set to a particular color, or made to be transparent? The issue does not arise if the plot aspect.ratio is not set, but I would like to have a set aspect ratio!

rstudio ggplot2 r graphics
1 Answers

One option to achieve your desired result would be to draw a rectGrob with the desired fill color and drawing the ggplot on top of it:

set.seed(42)

animals <- as.data.frame(
  table(
    Species =
      c(
        rep("Moose", sample(1:100, 1)),
        rep("Frog", sample(1:100, 1)),
        rep("Dragonfly", sample(1:100, 1))
      )
  )
)

library(ggplot2)
library(grid)

g <- ggplot(animals, aes(x = "", y = Freq, fill = Species)) +
  geom_bar(width = 1, stat = "identity") +
  coord_polar("y", start=0) +
  theme(plot.background = element_rect(fill = "lightblue", color = "lightblue"))


grob <- rectGrob(gp = gpar(fill = "lightblue", col = "lightblue"))
grid.newpage()
grid.draw(grob)
grid.draw(ggplotGrob(g))

user_129938610
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