Create subplots in a subplot in R

Question

I'm trying to arrange my plots as shown in the figure in R.

I can create a 2 by 2 plot matrix using:

par(mfrow=c(2,2))

Is it possible to further create subplots within the 4th square as shown in the figure?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can use the layout function to arrange graphics plots. layout takes a matrix that indicates the order in which to add plots to the graphics device.

m1 <- matrix(c(
    1, 1, 2, 2, 
    1, 1, 2, 2, 
    3, 3, 4, 5, 
    3, 3, 6, 7), nrow = 4, ncol = 4, byrow = TRUE)
m1
#      [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4]
# [1,]    1    1    2    2
# [2,]    1    1    2    2
# [3,]    3    3    4    5
# [4,]    3    3    6    7
layout(m1)
hist(rnorm(100), col = "red")
hist(rnorm(100), col = "orange")
hist(rnorm(100), col = "yellow")
hist(rnorm(100), col = "green")
hist(rnorm(100), col = "lightblue")
hist(rnorm(100), col = "blue")
hist(rnorm(100), col = "violet")

You will need to make sure the graphics device is large enough to receive large numbers of plots.