The difference between Locations and Dimensions in
grid
Paul Murrell
June 23, 2022
grid makes use of unit objects to express both the locations and dimensions of graphical
components. For example, the grid.rect() function treats its x- and y-arguments as
locations within the current viewport, and its width- and height-arguments as dimensions
within the current viewport.
These different interpretations of units are usually implicit like this; if its an x- or y-value
then its a location, if its a width- or height-value then its a dimension.
The distinction is made at all because, in some coordinate systems, notably "native" coor-
dinates, the location x can have a very different meaning from the dimension x – basically,
whenever the minimum value of the coordinate system is not zero.
In the specification of simple units, the difference between locations and dimensions is often
not noticeable. However, there are a couple of tricky areas:
1. When adding (or performing any arithmetic operation on) units, it is important to keep
in mind that locations are added like vectors and dimensions are added like lengths.
The following diagram demonstrates the difference:
1
1 1native as a location
1native as a dimension
0.6native as a dimension
0.6native as a dimension
0.4native as a dimension
0.6native as a location
0.6native as a location
0.5
0.4native as a location
−0.4native as a dimension
0
−0.4native as a location
−0.5
2. The functions convertX, convertY, convertWidth, convertHeight are used to con-
vert from one coordinate system to another. Again, it is important whether the conver-
sion is for a location or for a dimension. The following code demonstrates some results
from these functions based on a similar situation to that in the preceding diagram:
> pushViewport(viewport(yscale = c(-0.6, 1.3)))
> # Unexpected results?
> convertY(unit(1,'native'), "native")
[1] 1native
> convertY(unit(-.4,'native'), "native")
[1] -0.4native
> convertY(unit(1,'native')+unit(-.4,'native'), "native")
[1] 0.6native
> convertY(unit(1,'native')-unit(.4,'native'), "native")
[1] 0.6native
> # Expected results
> convertHeight(unit(1,'native'), "native")
2
[1] 1native
> convertHeight(unit(-.4,'native'), "native")
[1] -0.4native
> convertHeight(unit(1,'native')+unit(-.4,'native'), "native")
[1] 0.6native
> convertHeight(unit(1,'native')-unit(.4,'native'), "native")
[1] 0.6native
> popViewport()
