demonstration of animating R/ggplot2 graphs with ImageMagick

ggplotanimations.R

# NOTE: requires ImageMagick to be installed and in the PATH! Should work on most Linux and Mac systems.

library(ggplot2)

d <- data.frame(x=rep(1:10,10), y=rnorm(100, 1:10))

files <- character()

for (i in 1:10)
{
	p <- ggplot(subset(d, subset=x<=i), aes(x=x, y=y)) + geom_point() + 
	  scale_x_continuous(limits=c(0,11)) + scale_y_continuous(limits=c(0,11))
	
	ggsave(filename=(files[i]=sprintf("frame%03d.png", i)), plot=p)
}

cmd <- paste("convert -delay 100", paste(files, collapse=" "), "animated.gif")

system(cmd)

file.remove(unlist(files))