[r] ggplot with 2 y axes on each side and different scales

The technical backbone to the solution of this challenge has been provided by Kohske some 3 years ago [KOHSKE]. The topic and the technicalities around its solution have been discussed on several instances here on Stackoverflow [IDs: 18989001, 29235405, 21026598]. So i shall only provide a specific variation and some explanatory walkthrough, using above solutions.

Let us assume we do have some data y1 in group G1 to which some data y2 in group G2 is related in some way, e.g. range/scale transformed or with some noise added. So one wants to plot the data together on one plot with the scale of y1 on the left and y2 on the right.

  df <- data.frame(item=LETTERS[1:n],  y1=c(-0.8684, 4.2242, -0.3181, 0.5797, -0.4875), y2=c(-5.719, 205.184, 4.781, 41.952, 9.911 )) # made up!

> df
  item      y1         y2
1    A -0.8684 -19.154567
2    B  4.2242 219.092499
3    C -0.3181  18.849686
4    D  0.5797  46.945161
5    E -0.4875  -4.721973

If we now plot our data together with something like

ggplot(data=df, aes(label=item)) +
  theme_bw() + 
  geom_segment(aes(x='G1', xend='G2', y=y1, yend=y2), color='grey')+
  geom_text(aes(x='G1', y=y1), color='blue') +
  geom_text(aes(x='G2', y=y2), color='red') +
  theme(legend.position='none', panel.grid=element_blank())

it doesnt align nicely as the smaller scale y1 obviosuly gets collapsed by larger scale y2.

The trick here to meet the challenge is to techncially plot both data sets against the first scale y1 but report the second against a secondary axis with labels showing the original scale y2.

So we build a first helper function CalcFudgeAxis which calculates and collects features of the new axis to be shown. The function can be amended to ayones liking (this one just maps y2 onto the range of y1).

CalcFudgeAxis = function( y1, y2=y1) {
  Cast2To1 = function(x) ((ylim1[2]-ylim1[1])/(ylim2[2]-ylim2[1])*x) # x gets mapped to range of ylim2
  ylim1 <- c(min(y1),max(y1))
  ylim2 <- c(min(y2),max(y2))    
  yf <- Cast2To1(y2)
  labelsyf <- pretty(y2)  
  return(list(
    yf=yf,
    labels=labelsyf,
    breaks=Cast2To1(labelsyf)
  ))
}

what yields some:

> FudgeAxis <- CalcFudgeAxis( df$y1, df$y2 )

> FudgeAxis
$yf
[1] -0.4094344  4.6831656  0.4029175  1.0034664 -0.1009335

$labels
[1] -50   0  50 100 150 200 250

$breaks
[1] -1.068764  0.000000  1.068764  2.137529  3.206293  4.275058  5.343822


> cbind(df, FudgeAxis$yf)
  item      y1         y2 FudgeAxis$yf
1    A -0.8684 -19.154567   -0.4094344
2    B  4.2242 219.092499    4.6831656
3    C -0.3181  18.849686    0.4029175
4    D  0.5797  46.945161    1.0034664
5    E -0.4875  -4.721973   -0.1009335

Now I wraped Kohske's solution in the second helper function PlotWithFudgeAxis (into which we throw the ggplot object and helper object of the new axis):

library(gtable)
library(grid)

PlotWithFudgeAxis = function( plot1, FudgeAxis) {
  # based on: https://rpubs.com/kohske/dual_axis_in_ggplot2
  plot2 <- plot1 + with(FudgeAxis, scale_y_continuous( breaks=breaks, labels=labels))

  #extract gtable
  g1<-ggplot_gtable(ggplot_build(plot1))
  g2<-ggplot_gtable(ggplot_build(plot2))

  #overlap the panel of the 2nd plot on that of the 1st plot
  pp<-c(subset(g1$layout, name=="panel", se=t:r))
  g<-gtable_add_grob(g1, g2$grobs[[which(g2$layout$name=="panel")]], pp$t, pp$l, pp$b,pp$l)

  ia <- which(g2$layout$name == "axis-l")
  ga <- g2$grobs[[ia]]
  ax <- ga$children[[2]]
  ax$widths <- rev(ax$widths)
  ax$grobs <- rev(ax$grobs)
  ax$grobs[[1]]$x <- ax$grobs[[1]]$x - unit(1, "npc") + unit(0.15, "cm")
  g <- gtable_add_cols(g, g2$widths[g2$layout[ia, ]$l], length(g$widths) - 1)
  g <- gtable_add_grob(g, ax, pp$t, length(g$widths) - 1, pp$b)

  grid.draw(g)
}

Now all can be put together: Below code shows, how the proposed solution could be used in a day-to-day environment. The plot call now doesnt plot the original data y2 anymore but a cloned version yf (held inside the pre-calculated helper object FudgeAxis), which runs of the scale of y1. The original ggplot objet is then manipulated with Kohske's helper function PlotWithFudgeAxis to add a second axis preserving the scales of y2. It plots as well the manipulated plot.

FudgeAxis <- CalcFudgeAxis( df$y1, df$y2 )

tmpPlot <- ggplot(data=df, aes(label=item)) +
      theme_bw() + 
      geom_segment(aes(x='G1', xend='G2', y=y1, yend=FudgeAxis$yf), color='grey')+
      geom_text(aes(x='G1', y=y1), color='blue') +
      geom_text(aes(x='G2', y=FudgeAxis$yf), color='red') +
      theme(legend.position='none', panel.grid=element_blank())

PlotWithFudgeAxis(tmpPlot, FudgeAxis)

This now plots as desired with two axis, y1 on the left and y2 on the right

Above solution is, to put it straight, a limited shaky hack. As it plays with the ggplot kernel it will throw some warnings that we exchange post-the-fact scales, etc. It has to be handled with care and may produce some undesired behaviour in another setting. As well one may need to fiddle around with the helper functions to get the layout as desired. The placement of the legend is such an issue (it would be placed between the panel and the new axis; this is why I droped it). The scaling / alignment of the 2 axis is as well a bit challenging: The code above works nicely when both scales contain the "0", else one axis gets shifted. So definetly with some opportunities to improve...

In case on wants to save the pic one has to wrap the call into device open / close:

png(...)
PlotWithFudgeAxis(tmpPlot, FudgeAxis)
dev.off()