This help topic is for R version 2.9.0. For the current version of R, try https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-patched/library/graphics/html/rect.html
rect {graphics}R Documentation

Draw One or More Rectangles

Description

rect draws a rectangle (or sequence of rectangles) with the given coordinates, fill and border colors.

Usage

rect(xleft, ybottom, xright, ytop, density = NULL, angle = 45,
     col = NA, border = NULL, lty = par("lty"), lwd = par("lwd"),
     ...)

Arguments

xleft

a vector (or scalar) of left x positions.

ybottom

a vector (or scalar) of bottom y positions.

xright

a vector (or scalar) of right x positions.

ytop

a vector (or scalar) of top y positions.

density

the density of shading lines, in lines per inch. The default value of NULL means that no shading lines are drawn. A zero value of density means no shading lines whereas negative values (and NA) suppress shading (and so allow color filling).

angle

angle (in degrees) of the shading lines.

col

color(s) to fill or shade the rectangle(s) with. The default NA (or also NULL) means do not fill, i.e., draw transparent rectangles, unless density is specified.

border

color for rectangle border(s). The default means par("fg"). Use border = NA to omit borders. If there are shading lines, border = TRUE means use the same colour for the border as for the shading lines.

lty

line type for borders and shading; defaults to "solid".

lwd

line width for borders and shading.

...

graphical parameters such as xpd, lend, ljoin and lmitre can be given as arguments.

Details

The positions supplied, i.e., xleft, ..., are relative to the current plotting region. If the x-axis goes from 100 to 200 then xleft must be larger than 100 and xright must be less than 200. The position vectors will be recycled to the length of the longest.

It is a graphics primitive used in hist, barplot, legend, etc.

See Also

box for the standard box around the plot; polygon and segments for flexible line drawing.

par for how to specify colors.

Examples

require(grDevices)
## set up the plot region:
op <- par(bg = "thistle")
plot(c(100, 250), c(300, 450), type = "n", xlab="", ylab="",
     main = "2 x 11 rectangles; 'rect(100+i,300+i,  150+i,380+i)'")
i <- 4*(0:10)
## draw rectangles with bottom left (100, 300)+i
## and top right (150, 380)+i
rect(100+i, 300+i, 150+i, 380+i, col=rainbow(11, start=.7,end=.1))
rect(240-i, 320+i, 250-i, 410+i, col=heat.colors(11), lwd=i/5)
## Background alternating  ( transparent / "bg" ) :
j <- 10*(0:5)
rect(125+j, 360+j,   141+j, 405+j/2, col = c(NA,0),
     border = "gold", lwd = 2)
rect(125+j, 296+j/2, 141+j, 331+j/5, col = c(NA,"midnightblue"))
mtext("+  2 x 6 rect(*, col = c(NA,0)) and  col = c(NA,\"m..blue\"))")

## an example showing colouring and shading
plot(c(100, 200), c(300, 450), type= "n", xlab="", ylab="")
rect(100, 300, 125, 350) # transparent
rect(100, 400, 125, 450, col="green", border="blue") # coloured
rect(115, 375, 150, 425, col=par("bg"), border="transparent")
rect(150, 300, 175, 350, density=10, border="red")
rect(150, 400, 175, 450, density=30, col="blue",
     angle=-30, border="transparent")

legend(180, 450, legend=1:4, fill=c(NA, "green", par("fg"), "blue"),
       density=c(NA, NA, 10, 30), angle=c(NA, NA, 30, -30))

par(op)

[Package graphics version 2.9.0 ]