Sparklines — tiny word-sized charts

vsparkline() builds a compact, axis-free chart of a single numeric series, sized in physical units (mm by default) so it reads as a word-sized graphic (Tufte's sparkline) — for a table cell, a caption, or a dashboard tile. It is a self-contained PlotSpec: render it with render_plot(), drop it into a composition with inset(), or (soon) a table cell.

Usage

vsparkline(
  values,
  type = c("line", "bar", "winloss"),
  color = "grey30",
  points = c("extremes", "last", "none"),
  point_color = "firebrick",
  baseline = 0,
  win_color = "#2c7fb8",
  loss_color = "#d7301f",
  linewidth = 1,
  point_size = 1.4,
  width = 20,
  height = 6,
  units = "mm",
  dpi = 96
)

Arguments

values

A numeric vector (the series), length >= 2.

type

"line" (default), "bar", or "winloss".

color

Trend / bar colour. Default "grey30".

points

For type = "line", which points get a dot: "extremes" (default – the min and max), "last", or "none".

point_color

Dot colour (default "firebrick").

baseline

For "bar", the value bars grow from (default 0); for "winloss", the threshold separating a win (>=) from a loss (default 0).

win_color, loss_color

For "winloss", the up / down bar colours (defaults blue / red).

linewidth

Trend line width (default 1).

point_size

Dot diameter in mm (default 1.4).

width, height, units

Physical size of the sparkline; units is one of "mm" (default), "cm", "in", "pt". Default 20 x 6 mm.

dpi

Resolution for raster output.

Value

A PlotSpec.

Details

Three shapes via type: a "line" trend (with optional dots on its extremes or last point), a "bar" column micro-chart, and a "winloss" chart of equal up/down bars about a baseline (for streaks of wins/losses, gains/drops).

The chart fills its box with no axes, gridlines, labels, or legend.

See also

render_plot(), inset()

Examples

set.seed(1)
vsparkline(cumsum(rnorm(30)))

vsparkline(rpois(20, 5), type = "bar")

vsparkline(sample(c(-1, 1), 20, replace = TRUE), type = "winloss")