[r] How to draw an empty plot?

I need to make an empty plot. This is the best could I come up with.

plot(0, xaxt = 'n', yaxt = 'n', bty = 'n', pch = '', ylab = '', xlab = '')

Any simpler solutions?

P.S.: completely empty, no axis etc.

The following does not plot anything in the plot and it will remain empty.

plot(NULL, xlim=c(0,1), ylim=c(0,1), ylab="y label", xlab="x lablel")

This is useful when you want to add lines or dots afterwards within a for loop or something similar. Just remember to change the xlim and ylim values based on the data you want to plot.

As a side note: This can also be used for Boxplot, Violin plots and swarm plots. for those remember to add add = TRUE to their plotting function and also specify at = to specify on which number you want to plot them (default is x axis unless you have set horz = TRUE in these functions.

I suggest that someone needs to make empty plot in order to add some graphics on it later. So, using

plot(1, type="n", xlab="", ylab="", xlim=c(0, 10), ylim=c(0, 10))

you can specify the axes limits of your graphic.

If anyone is looking for a ggplot2 solution, you can use either cowplot or patchwork packages

library(ggplot2)

### examples from cowplot vignettes
plot.mpg <- ggplot(mpg, aes(x = cty, y = hwy, colour = factor(cyl))) +
  geom_point(size = 2.5)
plot.diamonds <- ggplot(diamonds, aes(clarity, fill = cut)) + 
  geom_bar() +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 0, vjust = 0.5))

library(cowplot)
### use NULL
plot_grid(plot.mpg, NULL, NULL, plot.diamonds,
  labels = c("A", "B", "C", "D"),
  ncol = 2
)

# Note: if you want to initialize an empty drawing canvas, use ggdraw() 

library(patchwork)
### use plot_spacer()
plot.mpg + plot_spacer() + plot_spacer() + plot.diamonds +
  plot_layout(ncol = 2) +
  plot_annotation(
    title = "Plot title",
    subtitle = "Plot subtitle",
    tag_levels = "A",
    tag_suffix = ")"
  )

^{Created on 2019-03-17 by the reprex package (v0.2.1.9000)}

grid.newpage() ## If you're using ggplot

grid() ## If you just want to activate the device.

Adam, following your comment above ("I wanted the empty plot to serve as filler in a multiplot (mfrow) plot."), what you actually want is the mfg option

    par(mfg=c(row,column))

- which controls where you want to put the next plot. For instance, to put a plot in the middle of a 3x3 multiplot, do

    par(mfrow=c(3,3))
    par(mfg=c(2,2))
    plot(rnorm(10))

This is marginally simpler than your original solution:

plot(0,type='n',axes=FALSE,ann=FALSE)

You need a new plot window, and also a coordinate system, so you need plot.new() and plot.window(), then you can start to add graph elements:

plot.new( )
plot.window( xlim=c(-5,5), ylim=c(-5,5) )

points( rnorm(100), rnorm(100) )
axis( side=1 )

example plot

An empty plot with some texts which are set position.

plot(1:10, 1:10,xaxt="n",yaxt="n",bty="n",pch="",ylab="",xlab="", main="", sub="")
mtext("eee", side = 3, line = -0.3, adj = 0.5)
text(5, 10.4, "ddd")
text(5, 7, "ccc")

There is an interest in your solution that plot.new() hasn't though: in the empty plot you "draw" you can write text at specified coordinates with text(x = ..., y = ..., your_text).