Using SAS and R for visualizations

R is a software that can be integrated into reporting SAS data. With R, which is open source, it is possible to set up connections between SAS and R data. But the main difference between making plots and other visualizations in SAS versus doing it in R has to do with data handling. As we have seen with SAS, when using PROCs that create plots, such as PROC UNIVARIATE, SAS typically reads or calculates the relevant values from the entire dataset and plots them. In a scatter plot, this is necessary – but it is not necessary for all plots. Although some SAS PROCs have the ability to take in a summary dataset and visualize it, many SAS PROCs require processing the whole underlying dataset.

Let's think of a box plot for a moment. For a box plot, outliers aside, we technically only need to know five different points in order to create the image of the plot: the minimum, 25th percentile, median, 75th percentile, and maximum. If we were creating...