Custom legend with imported images

Question

I'm currently creating plots in ggplot2 by importing custom images and using them as geom_points, similar to this post, except I am looping through different images for unique levels of a factor.

Is there an easy way to add these images to the legend? I've seen multiple posts on custom legends in ggplot2, but nothing that deals with imported images.

Answer 1

I'm not sure how you will go about generating your plot, but this shows one method to replace a legend key with an image. It uses grid functions to locate the viewports containing the legend key grobs, and replaces one with the R logo

library(png)
library(ggplot2)
library(grid)

# Get image
img <- readPNG(system.file("img", "Rlogo.png", package="png"))

# Plot
p = ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, disp, colour = factor(vs))) + 
    geom_point() +
    theme(legend.key.size = unit(1, "cm"))

# Get ggplot grob
gt = ggplotGrob(p)
grid.newpage()
grid.draw(gt)

# Find the viewport containing legend keys
current.vpTree() # not well formatted
formatVPTree(current.vpTree())  # Better formatting - see below for the formatVPTree() function

    # Find the legend key viewports
    # The two viewports are: 
      # key-4-1-1.5-2-5-2
      # key-3-1-1.4-2-4-2

# Or search using regular expressions
Tree = as.character(current.vpTree())
pos = gregexpr("\\[key.*?\\]", Tree)
match = unlist(regmatches(Tree, pos))

match = gsub("^\\[(key.*?)\\]$", "\\1", match) # remove square brackets
match = match[!grepl("bg", match)]  # removes matches containing bg

# Change one of the legend keys to the image
downViewport(match[2])
grid.rect(gp=gpar(col = NA, fill = "white"))
grid.raster(img, interpolate=FALSE)
upViewport(0)

# Paul Murrell's function to display the vp tree 
formatVPTree <- function(x, indent=0) {
    end <- regexpr("[)]+,?", x)
    sibling <- regexpr(", ", x)
    child <- regexpr("[(]", x)
    if ((end < child || child < 0) && (end < sibling || sibling < 0)) {
        lastchar <- end + attr(end, "match.length")
        cat(paste0(paste(rep("  ", indent), collapse=""), 
                   substr(x, 1, end - 1), "\n"))
        if (lastchar < nchar(x)) {
            formatVPTree(substring(x, lastchar + 1), 
                         indent - attr(end, "match.length") + 1)
        }
    }
    if (child > 0 && (sibling < 0 || child < sibling)) {
        cat(paste0(paste(rep("  ", indent), collapse=""), 
                   substr(x, 1, child - 3), "\n"))
        formatVPTree(substring(x, child + 1), indent + 1)
    }
    if (sibling > 0 && sibling < end && (child < 0 || sibling < child)) {
        cat(paste0(paste(rep("  ", indent), collapse=""), 
                   substr(x, 1, sibling - 1), "\n"))
        formatVPTree(substring(x, sibling + 2), indent)
    }
}