Day 8: 30-days to learn rgl, plotly, and gganimate - Creating Animated Plots with gganimate and Exporting Frames to Plotly

 

Step 1: Set Up Your Environment

1. Install Required Packages: Ensure you have the following libraries installed:

install.packages(c("gganimate", "ggplot2", "plotly"))

2. Load Libraries:

library(gganimate)

library(ggplot2)

library(plotly)

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Step 2: Prepare Your Dataset

1. Use a time-based dataset or create one for practice. For example:

data <- data.frame(

  year = rep(2000:2010, each = 3),

  category = rep(c("A", "B", "C"), times = 11),

  value = runif(33, 10, 100)

)

2. Preview your dataset:

head(data)

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Step 3: Create a Static ggplot

1. Start by plotting the data without animation:

p <- ggplot(data, aes(x = year, y = value, color = category)) +

  geom_line(aes(group = category)) +

  theme_minimal() +

  labs(title = "Value Trends Over Time", x = "Year", y = "Value")

2. Print the plot to ensure correctness:

print(p)

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Step 4: Animate the Plot with gganimate

1. Add animation to visualize trends over time:

animated_plot <- p +

  transition_time(year) +

  ease_aes('linear') +

  labs(subtitle = "Year: {frame_time}")

2. Render the animation in your RStudio viewer:

animate(animated_plot, nframes = 100, fps = 10)

3. Save the animation as a GIF (optional):

anim_save("animated_plot.gif", animation = animated_plot)

Step 5: Export Frames to Plotly

Here’s a corrected version of how to export frames to Plotly:

---

1. Add a Frame Column: Add a frame column to the dataset for use in plot_ly():

data$frame <- data$year

2. Create a Plotly Animation: Use plot_ly() to build the animated visualization. Explicitly set the trace type to "scatter" and specify the mode:

plotly_animation <- plot_ly(

  data = data,

  x = ~year,

  y = ~value,

  color = ~category,

  frame = ~frame,

  type = "scatter",

  mode = "lines+markers"

) %>%

  layout(

    title = "Interactive Animation with Plotly",

    xaxis = list(title = "Year"),

    yaxis = list(title = "Value")

  )

3. Render the Plotly Animation: Display the interactive animated plot:

plotly_animation