Add a Checkerboard-Like Frame around a Plot

This function adds a checkerboard-like frame around an existing plot (or a new one) as an ensemble of small rectangles whose colors, position and width can be specified by user.

addFrame(
  at_x,
  at_y,
  col = c("white", border),
  border = "black",
  width = NULL,
  lwd = 1,
  lty = 1,
  asp = NA,
  grid = FALSE,
  add = FALSE,
  ...
)

Arguments

at_x	positions on the x-Axis of the borders of rectangles.
at_y	positions on the y-Axis of the borders of rectangles.
col	one or several colors of rectangles background.
border	color of rectangles border.
width	width of the frame.
lwd	thickness of rectangles border (and grid).
lty	type of rectangles border lines (and grid).
asp	aspect ratio of the plot (see plot.window()).
grid	a boolean. If TRUE adds vertical and horizontal lines at at_x and at_y.
add	a boolean. If TRUE adds the frame to an existing plot.
...	other graphical parameters as in par().

Details

If add = FALSE, a new plot is drawn with xlim = ylim = c(-1, 1). Argument col can be set with one or multiple colors. If only one color is specified in col, border color will be used to draw the checkerboard. If width is NULL, the width of the frame is equivalent to 4% of the extent of the plot area.

Author

Nicolas CASAJUS, nicolas.casajus@gmail.com

Examples

## Grid and graduations
addFrame()
addFrame(grid = TRUE)
addFrame(grid = TRUE, lwd = 0.25, lty = 3)
addFrame(at_x = seq(-1, 1, by = 0.1))

## Frame width
addFrame(width = 0.25)
addFrame(at_x = seq(-1, 1, by = 0.01), width = 1.00)

## Colors
addFrame(col = 1:6)
addFrame(col = "lightgray", border = "darkgray")

## Adding to a plot
maps::map()
addFrame(grid = TRUE, add = TRUE, width = 5)
maps::map.axes()

## Other graphical parameters
addFrame(bg = "darkgray", xaxs = "i", yaxs = "i")