## Curved arrows in R

I briefly investigated how to draw curved arrows in R. Here’s a small piece of the figure that I ultimately created:

A google search for “curved arrows in R” revealed three options:

I wasn’t too happy with how the arrow heads looked using the diagram package, and I didn’t want to have to fiddle around with `xspline`, and igraph worked quite easily, so I went with that.

Plotting multiple arrows with different colors in a single call to `igraph.Arrows` didn’t work right (the arrow heads were all the first color), but using a loop and plotting one arrow per call worked fine.

Here’s a bit of code I played with:

```library(igraph)
par(mar=rep(1,4))
plot(0,0, type="n",xaxt="n", yaxt="n", xlab="", ylab="",
xlim=c(0,11), ylim=c(1,11))

x <- 1:10
y <- rep(2, 10)

for(k in 0:4)
points(x, y+k*2)

iArrows <- igraph:::igraph.Arrows

mycolors <- rep(c("green", "orange", "red", "blue"), 3)

for(i in 1:9) {
iArrows(x[i], y[i], x[i+1], y[i+1],
h.lwd=2, sh.lwd=2, sh.col=mycolors[i],
curve=0.5 - (i %% 2), width=1, size=0.7)

iArrows(x[i], y[i]+2, x[i+1], y[i+1]+2,
h.lwd=2, sh.lwd=2, sh.col=mycolors[i],
curve=1 - (i %% 2), width=1, size=0.7)
}

for(i in 1:8) {
iArrows(x[i], y[i]+4, x[i+2], y[i+2]+4,
h.lwd=2, sh.lwd=2, sh.col=mycolors[i],
curve=0.5 - (i %% 2), width=1, size=0.7)

iArrows(x[i], y[i]+6, x[i+2], y[i+2]+6,
h.lwd=2, sh.lwd=2, sh.col=mycolors[i],
curve=1 - 2*(i %% 2), width=1, size=0.7)
}

x1 <- x[1:8]
x2 <- x[3:10]
y <- y[1:8]+8

iArrows(x1, y, x2, y,
h.lwd=2, sh.lwd=2, sh.col=mycolors[1:8],
curve=1 - 2*((1:8) %% 2), width=1, size=0.7)
```

And here’s the corresponding figure:

Note that the arrows at the top all have green arrow heads.

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### 5 Responses to “Curved arrows in R”

1. cellocgw Says:

Haven’t tried it, but I think plotrix::draw.arc will let you pass an arrowhead argument.

2. statsinthewild Says:

Reblogged this on Stats in the Wild.

3. Dr.D.K.Samuel Says:

thanks it worked as you wrote

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5. Using Bezier curves to draw flow lines | Andrew Wheeler Says:

[…] Perhaps in the future I will work on an R function to calculate Bezier curves (I’m sure they could be of some use), but hopefully for those interested this is simple enough to program your own function in whatever […]