Definition

A radar or spider or web chart is a two-dimensional chart type designed to plot one or more series of values over multiple quantitative variables. Each variable has its own axis, all axes are joined in the center of the figure.

Let’s consider the exam results of a student. He has a mark ranging from 0 to 20 for ten topics like math, sports, statistics, and so on. The radar chart provides one axis for each topic. The shape allows you to see which topics the student performed well or poorly in.

# Libraries
library(tidyverse)
library(viridis)
library(patchwork)
library(hrbrthemes)
library(fmsb)
library(colormap)

# Create data
set.seed(1)
data <- as.data.frame(matrix( sample( 2:20 , 10 , replace=T) , ncol=10))
colnames(data) <- c("math" , "english" , "biology" , "music" , "R-coding", "data-viz" , "french" , "physic", "statistic", "sport" )

# To use the fmsb package, I have to add 2 lines to the dataframe: the max and min of each topic to show on the plot!
data <- rbind(rep(20,10) , rep(0,10) , data)

# Custom the radarChart !
par(mar=c(0,0,0,0))
radarchart( data, axistype=1, 

  #custom polygon
  pcol=rgb(0.2,0.5,0.5,0.9) , pfcol=rgb(0.2,0.5,0.5,0.5) , plwd=4 , 

  #custom the grid
  cglcol="grey", cglty=1, axislabcol="grey", caxislabels=seq(0,20,5), cglwd=0.8,

  #custom labels
  vlcex=0.8 
  )