Using heat.colours in geom_tile

Question

I have created a tile plot using a custom scale_file_gradientn palette, but the colours aren't quite right - and correcting it is a massive pain. The image shows the current version, though without axis labels (data not yet ready to be shared.).

current version

Instead, I'd like to use the heat.colors palette. (I need the 0 value to be white, so viridis and similar palettes are not a good option here, I think).

However, I am struggling to find the right code for incorporating heat.colours into the ggplot2 geom_tile function. Can anyone advise?

Below is the code for my previous version using the custom palette, in case it is helpful.

ptile<-ggplot(dftabtile, aes(y=Var1, x=icd_ord, fill=Freq))

ptile<- ptile + geom_tile(color="Black", size=0.1) + coord_equal() + labs(y = "y values", x="x values" ) + theme_minimal() + xangle_theme

tile_red <- ptile  + scale_fill_gradientn(colours=c("white", "#f2e8eb", "#e5d2d7","#d8bcc3", "#cba6af","#be909c", "#b17a88", "#a46474", "#974e60", "#8a384c","#7d2239"), values=c(0,0.0001,0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1), name="# Data points")

tile_red

ggsave("demo.png", width=400, height=200, units="mm")

Answer 1

I don't know if it might help cause you didn't provide your data, but have you tried using scale_fill_brewer instead of scale_fill_gradient ?

library(tidyverse) 

library(RColorBrewer)

display.brewer.all()

ftabtile %>% 
  ggplot(aes(y=Var1,
             x=icd_ord,
             fill=Freq)) +
  geom_tile(color="Black", size=0.1)+
  coord_equal() + 
  labs(y = "y values", x="x values" ) +
  theme_minimal() +
  xangle_theme +
  scale_fill_brewer(palette = "Blues")