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orbis

A layered grammar of graphics for R that is interactive by default, sharp at any resolution, and knows the world map.

orbis builds a plot from a grammar you already recognise, but instead of committing to one output it compiles the plot to a resolution-independent scene description and hands that to two renderers:

a self-contained SVG writer with embedded JavaScript — tooltips, hover highlighting, mouse-wheel zoom, drag to pan, and clickable legend keys, with no JavaScript library and no internet connection required;
R’s own graphics devices — publication-quality PNG, TIFF or PDF at any resolution you ask for.

Geography is not an add-on. A simplified world polygon dataset ships with the package, and six map projections — including Equal Earth and an orthographic globe — are built in.

Installation

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("mqfarooqi1/orbis")

orbis imports only base R packages plus htmltools.

A first plot

library(orbis)

orb(mtcars, x = wt, y = mpg, colour = hp, size = disp) +
  orb_points() +
  orb_labs(title = "Fuel economy", x = "Weight (1000 lbs)",
           y = "Miles per gallon", colour = "Horsepower")

Scatter plot of fuel economy against weight, points coloured by horsepower and sized by displacement

The world, built in

orb_worldmap(values = gdp, value_col = "v", projection = "robinson",
             palette = "mako") +
  orb_labs(title = "World choropleth")

World choropleth in the Robinson projection, countries shaded by value

Switch one argument for a globe:

orb_worldmap(values = gdp, value_col = "v", projection = "orthographic",
             palette = "ember", ocean = "#0B1F33") +
  orb_coord_map("orthographic", centre = c(25, 20)) +
  orb_theme_dark()

Projections available: equirectangular, mercator, robinson, mollweide, equalearth (the modern equal-area projection of Savric, Patterson & Jenny) and orthographic. Points can be placed on any of them with orb_geo_points().

Small multiples

orb(mtcars, x = wt, y = mpg, colour = hp) +
  orb_points() +
  orb_facet(cyl) +
  orb_labs(title = "Small multiples by cylinder count")

Three small-multiple panels of fuel economy, one per cylinder count, sharing axes and a colour legend

Panels share their scales by default, so they are directly comparable; pass scales = "free" (or "free_x" / "free_y") to let each panel stretch to its own data. Colours and sizes are always resolved across the whole data set, so a value means the same thing in every panel.

Interactive, then print-ready — from one object

The same plot object produces both. Nothing is re-specified:

p <- orb(mtcars, x = wt, y = mpg, colour = factor(cyl)) + orb_points()

orb_interactive(p)                  # opens in the viewer: hover, zoom, pan
orb_save(p, "figure.png", dpi = 600) # 600 dpi raster for print
orb_save(p, "figure.pdf")            # vector
orb_save(p, "figure.svg")            # vector, and still interactive
orb_save(p, "figure.html")           # a self-contained interactive page

In the interactive output you can hover for a tooltip, scroll to zoom, drag to pan, double-click to reset, and click a legend key to hide or show that series.

What is in it

Function	Purpose
`orb()`	Start a plot: data plus a mapping from variables to channels
`orb_points()`, `orb_line()`, `orb_bars()`, `orb_area()`, `orb_text()`	Layers
`orb_map()`, `orb_geo_points()`, `orb_worldmap()`	Geographic layers
`orb_coord_map()`	Six map projections, including Equal Earth and an orthographic globe
`orb_facet()`	Small multiples: one panel per level, shared or free scales
`orb_scale_colour()`, `orb_scale_fill()`, `orb_scale_size()`, `orb_scale_x()`, `orb_scale_y()`	Scales, limits, log and square-root axes
`orb_theme_light()`, `orb_theme_dark()`, `orb_theme_minimal()`, `orb_theme_ink()`	Themes
`orb_save()`, `orb_svg()`, `orb_interactive()`, `orb_draw()`	Output
`orb_palettes()`	Perceptually uniform and qualitative palettes
`world_map`	Simplified world polygons, 229 regions

Honest limitations

orbis is young, and it is not a drop-in replacement for a mature plotting package. In particular:

No statistical layers. There is no smoother, no boxplot and no histogram geometry; summarise your data first.
Text metrics are approximated when laying out axes and legends, because the SVG writer does not query a font engine. Very long labels can be spaced imperfectly.
The world map is deliberately simplified for figure-sized output. For detailed cartography, or for anything requiring a coordinate reference system, use a dedicated spatial package.

References

Wickham, H. (2010) “A Layered Grammar of Graphics.” Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics 19, 3-28. doi:10.1198/jcgs.2009.07098
Šavrič, B., Patterson, T. & Jenny, B. (2019) “The Equal Earth map projection.” International Journal of Geographical Information Science 33, 454-465. doi:10.1080/13658816.2018.1504949
Crameri, F., Shephard, G. E. & Heron, P. J. (2020) “The misuse of colour in science communication.” Nature Communications 11, 5444. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19160-7
Snyder, J. P. (1987) Map Projections: A Working Manual. US Geological Survey Professional Paper 1395. doi:10.3133/pp1395
Douglas, D. H. & Peucker, T. K. (1973) “Algorithms for the reduction of the number of points required to represent a digitized line or its caricature.” Cartographica 10, 112-122. doi:10.3138/FM57-6770-U75U-7727

World boundaries derive from Natural Earth (public domain), via the maps package.

MIT licensed. Muhammad Farooqi.

These binaries (installable software) and packages are in development.
They may not be fully stable and should be used with caution. We make no claims about them.