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A Quick and Easy Way to Make Spiral Charts in R

Now that we’ve discovered another way to annoy chart snobs, here’s how you can make your own spirals.

Many people were dismayed by a spiral chart that served as a header image for a New York Times Opinion piece. I thought it was fine. Others had other opinions.

Disregarding whether or not it was the “best” way to visualize the data, clearly the more important question is how to make such a chart. Here’s how to make it in R.

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About the Author

Nathan Yau is a statistician who works primarily with visualization. He earned his PhD in statistics from UCLA, is the author of two best-selling books — Data Points and Visualize This — and runs FlowingData. Introvert. Likes food. Likes beer.