11.66 Text Path Clock Multiple Plots

20220109

clock <- function(x)
{
  hours <- c(rep(x[1] %% 12 + tail(x, 1) / 60, 2), 0, 3.5)
  minutes <- c(rep(tail(x, 1)/5, 2), 0, 5)

  as.data.frame(rbind(hours, minutes)) %>%
    ggplot(aes(V1, V3)) +
    geom_segment(aes(xend=V2, yend=V4),
                 size=c(2, 1),
                 lineend="round") +
    geom_point(x=0, y=0, size=6) +
    scale_x_continuous(limits=c(0, 12),
                       breaks=1:12,
                       label=as.roman) +
    scale_y_continuous(limits=c(0, 6),
                       expand=c(0, 0)) +
    theme_void() +
    theme(plot.margin=unit(c(30,15,30,15), "pt"),
          axis.text.x=element_text(size=10, face=2))
}

c1 <- clock(10:10) + coord_polar()
c2 <- clock(8:20) + coord_polar()
n <- now(); h <- lubridate::hour(n); m <- lubridate::minute(n)
c3 <- clock(h:m) + coord_polar()

c1 + c2 + c3

The clock is an example from geomtextpath (Cameron and van den Brand 2025) and demonstrates a nice hack to produce a clock face. Any time can be specified in the call to clock().

In our example we have three clocks generated and using patchwork (Pedersen 2025) the multiple plots are displayed as a single plot through the + operator.

References

Cameron, Allan, and Teun van den Brand. 2025. Geomtextpath: Curved Text in Ggplot2. https://allancameron.github.io/geomtextpath/.

Pedersen, Thomas Lin. 2025. Patchwork: The Composer of Plots. https://patchwork.data-imaginist.com.

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