Is there a way to have non-overlapping data point labels on a ternery plot in R?

Question

I am trying to replicate a chart I found on FiveThirtyEight at https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-cable-news-reacted-to-the-cohen-hearing/. This shows a ternery plot where the location of the words in the 3 axis shows the proportion quoted that by that respective network.

I am currently using R, ggplot2 and more importantly ggtern (which I use extensively for ternery plots). However I have never found a way to make data labels on points not overlap. I have always hoped that ggtern would interact with ggrepel but sadly it doesn't (to my knowledge). Is there any way to force these to interact, or find another way of doing this?

Chart shown in link for clarity of what I'm after:

Example of my chart with words overlapping and looking bad:

EDIT Code to create my hideous chart:

    data <- data.frame(word = c("A","random","set","of","words","that","can","hopefully","help","someone","solve","my","issue","of","overlapping","labels","and","make","my","chart","readable","and","a","good","visualization"),
               axis1 = sample(1:100),
               axis2 = sample(1:100),
               axis3 = sample(1:100))

    ggtern(data = data,
        aes(x = axis1, y = axis2, z = axis3, colour = word, label = word)) +
      geom_point(size = 1) +
      geom_text()

can you show the code/data for you chart? – Oka Apr 03 '19 at 09:43 — Oka, Apr 03 '19 at 09:43

Oka · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-03T14:42:12.107

2

Ok, so you want the functionality as in ggrepel package. While ggrepel wont work here you can use position_nudge_tern and check_overlap:

word = c("A","random","set","of","words","that","can","hopefully","help","someone","solve","my","issue","of","overlapping","labels","and","make","my","chart","readable","and","a","good","visualization")
col = c("red", "blue", "green", "red", "blue", "green","red", "blue", "green", "red", "blue", "green","red", "blue", "green", "red", "blue", "green","red", "blue", "green", "red", "blue", "green","red")

n  = 25   #Number of Data Points
nv = 0.1  #Vertical Adjustment
pn = position_nudge_tern(y=nv,x=-nv/2,z=-nv/2)

data <- data.frame(x = sample(1:25),
               y = sample(1:25),
               z = sample(1:25), 
               label=word)

ggtern(data = data, aes(x = x, y = y, z = z, colour = col, label = word)) +
  geom_point(size = 1) +
  theme_nomask() + #Allow Labels to Spool Over Edges
  geom_text(position=pn,aes(label=word),check_overlap=T, size=5)

Which will give you non-overlapping labels:

edited Apr 03 '19 at 14:42

answered Apr 03 '19 at 09:53

Oka

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This doesn't work alongside ggtern. I'm after something like ggrepel, but that correctly works on ternery plots. – Peter Apr 03 '19 at 10:31
True. Also, in your example graph they adjusted the position by changing the angle of text (e.g. it is not all horizontal) – Oka Apr 03 '19 at 13:23
@Peter : Is it ok now? – Oka Apr 03 '19 at 14:51
1

Sorry about this, been meaning to get ggrepel working with ggtern. Plenty of people have asked for it. – Nicholas Hamilton Apr 03 '19 at 19:39
@Nicholas Hamilton Do you know if it is possible to adjust the angle in my example plot (like it was in cable news example of @Peter)? – Oka Apr 03 '19 at 20:52
As in angle of rotation of individual texts? – Nicholas Hamilton Apr 03 '19 at 20:57
Yes, exactly: angle of rotation of individual texts. – Oka Apr 03 '19 at 21:02
@NicholasHamilton ggrepel and ggtern together is everything I need! It is the one (and only) short coming of ggtern, otherwise its excellent! – Peter Apr 08 '19 at 08:30

Is there a way to have non-overlapping data point labels on a ternery plot in R?

1 Answers1