Three-dimensional visualization, although undesirable for certain purposes (where precise interpretation is important, such as in the scientific literature), can nevertheless be particularly impressive and aesthetically appealing. In this section, we are going to use lattice to create three-dimensional plots of spatial and nonspatial data, which is not possible to do with ggplot2 since it only allows two-dimensional plotting. The lattice graphics framework and syntax are no less complex than those of ggplot2, and a single section is far too short to comprehensibly review the subject. Our purpose here is much more modest: to show some of the things that can be achieved and inspire interested readers to investigate further. For more information on lattice, readers are referred to the authoritative overview in the book by package author Deepayan Sarkar, Lattice: Multivariate Data Visualization with R, Springer, which was published in 2008.

As already mentioned in...