set only lower bound of a limit for ggplot

Question

Is it possible to only set the lower bound of a limit for continuous scale? I want to make all my plots 0 based without needing to specify the upper limit bound.

e.g.

+ scale_y_continuous(minlim=0)

Brian Diggs · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-27T23:21:28.400

135

You can use expand_limits

ggplot(mtcars, aes(wt, mpg)) + geom_point() + expand_limits(y=0)

Here is a comparison of the two:

without expand_limits

with expand_limits

As of version 1.0.0 of ggplot2, you can specify only one limit and have the other be as it would be normally determined by setting that second limit to NA. This approach will allow for both expansion and truncation of the axis range.

ggplot(mtcars, aes(wt, mpg)) + geom_point() +
  scale_y_continuous(limits = c(0, NA))

specifying it via ylim(c(0, NA)) gives an identical figure.

edited Oct 27 '14 at 23:21

answered Jun 26 '12 at 19:14

Brian Diggs

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@PatrickT Did you mean that as a comment to http://stackoverflow.com/q/27028825/892313? – Brian Diggs Dec 04 '14 at 01:00
Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you – Veera Jul 20 '17 at 12:55

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 26 '12 at 19:02

12

How about using aes(ymin=0), as in:

ggplot(mtcars, aes(wt, mpg)) + geom_point() + aes(ymin=0)

answered Jun 26 '12 at 19:02

Josh O'Brien

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This overrides the ymin for geom_errorbar, etc.; expand_limits() seems safer. – Mark Jul 23 '12 at 21:58
This is not universal, as for a ``geom_density`` it gives me ``Error: stat_bin() must not be used with a y aesthetic`` or when placed inside the ``geom_density``, ``Warning: Ignoring unknown aesthetics: ymin`` (the latter being fully expected) – PatrickT Oct 02 '17 at 20:41

score 8 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 02 '18 at 14:43

8

You can also try the following code which will give you the min y-axis at zero and also without the extra gap between x-axis and min y value.

scale_y_continuous(limits = c(0, NA), expand = c(0,0))

edited Mar 02 '18 at 14:43

Brandon Minnick

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answered Mar 02 '18 at 14:25

WANNISA RITMAHAN

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Is there a way to do this with `coord_cartesian()` instead? – randy Nov 11 '19 at 18:24

score -1 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 26 '12 at 18:55

-1

I don't think you can do this directly. But as a work-around, you can mimic the way that ggplot2 determines the upper limit:

scale_y_continuous(limits=c(0, max(mydata$y) * 1.1))

answered Jun 26 '12 at 18:55

bdemarest

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set only lower bound of a limit for ggplot

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