drc:: drc plot with ggplot2

Question

I'm trying to reproduce drc plots with ggplot2. Here is my first attempt (MWE is given below). However, my ggplot2 is little bit different from base R plot. I wonder if I am missing something here?

library(drc)
chickweed.m1 <- drm(count~start+end, data = chickweed, fct = LL.3(), type = "event")

plot(chickweed.m1, xlab = "Time (hours)", ylab = "Proportion germinated", 
xlim=c(0, 340), ylim=c(0, 0.25), log="", lwd=2, cex=1.2)  

library(data.table)
dt1 <- data.table(chickweed)

dt1Means1 <- dt1[, .(Germinated=mean(count)/200), by=.(start)]
dt1Means2 <- dt1Means1[, .(start=start, Germinated=cumsum(Germinated))]
dt1Means  <- data.table(dt1Means2[start!=0], Pred=predict(object=chickweed.m1))

library(ggplot2)
ggplot(data= dt1Means, mapping=aes(x=start, y=Germinated)) + 
    geom_point() +
    geom_line(aes(y = Pred)) +
    lims(y=c(0, 0.25)) +
    theme_bw()

Edited

I followed the methodology (with some changes) given here.

Answer 1

NB, you can skip to the final paragraph for the simple answer. The rest of this answer documents how I arrived at that solution

Looking at the code for drc:::plot.drc, we can see that the final line invisibly returns a data.frame retData

function (x, ..., add = FALSE, level = NULL, type = c("average", 
                                                      "all", "bars", "none", "obs", "confidence"), broken = FALSE, 
          bp, bcontrol = NULL, conName = NULL, axes = TRUE, gridsize = 100, 
          log = "x", xtsty, xttrim = TRUE, xt = NULL, xtlab = NULL, 
          xlab, xlim, yt = NULL, ytlab = NULL, ylab, ylim, cex, cex.axis = 1, 
          col = FALSE, lty, pch, legend, legendText, legendPos, cex.legend = 1, 
          normal = FALSE, normRef = 1, confidence.level = 0.95) 
{
  # ...lot of lines omitted...
  invisible(retData)
}

retData contains the coordinates for the fitted model line, so we can use this to ggplot the same model that plot.drc uses

pl <- plot(chickweed.m1, xlab = "Time (hours)", ylab = "Proportion germinated", 
        xlim=c(0, 340), ylim=c(0, 0.25), log="", lwd=2, cex=1.2)
names(pl) <- c("x", "y")
ggplot(data= dt1Means, mapping=aes(x=start, y=Germinated)) + 
  geom_point() +
  geom_line(data=pl, aes(x=x, y = y)) +
  lims(y=c(0, 0.25)) +
  theme_bw()

Which is the same as the version you created in ggplot using predict(object=chickweed.m1). So, the difference is not in the model lines, but in where the data points are plotted. We can export the data point from drc:::plot.drc by changing the last line of the function from invisible(retData) to list(retData, plotPoints). For convenience, I copied the entire code of drc:::plot.drc into a new function. Note that if you wish to replicate this step, there are a few functions called by drcplot that are not exported in the drc namespace, so drc::: needs to be prepended to all calls to the functions parFct, addAxes, brokenAxis, and makeLegend.

drcplot <- function (x, ..., add = FALSE, level = NULL, type = c("average", 
                                                      "all", "bars", "none", "obs", "confidence"), broken = FALSE, 
          bp, bcontrol = NULL, conName = NULL, axes = TRUE, gridsize = 100, 
          log = "x", xtsty, xttrim = TRUE, xt = NULL, xtlab = NULL, 
          xlab, xlim, yt = NULL, ytlab = NULL, ylab, ylim, cex, cex.axis = 1, 
          col = FALSE, lty, pch, legend, legendText, legendPos, cex.legend = 1, 
          normal = FALSE, normRef = 1, confidence.level = 0.95) 
{
  # ...lot of lines omitted...
  list(retData, plotPoints)
}

and run this with your data

pl <- drcplot(chickweed.m1, xlab = "Time (hours)", ylab = "Proportion germinated", 
          xlim=c(0, 340), ylim=c(0, 0.25), log="", lwd=2, cex=1.2)

germ.points <- as.data.frame(pl[[2]])
drc.fit <- as.data.frame(pl[[1]])
names(germ.points) <- c("x", "y")
names(drc.fit) <- c("x", "y")

Now, plotting these with ggplot2 gets what you were looking for

ggplot(data= dt1Means, mapping=aes(x=start, y=Germinated)) + 
  geom_point(data=germ.points, aes(x=x, y = y)) +
  geom_line(data=drc.fit, aes(x=x, y = y)) +
  lims(y=c(0, 0.25)) +
  theme_bw()

Finally, comparing the data point values of this plot (germ.points) with those in your original ggplot (dt1Means), shows the reason for the discrepancy. Your calculated points in dt1Means are shifted one time period earlier relative to those in plot.drc. In other words, plot.drc is assigning the events to the end time of the period in which they occur, whereas you are assigning germination events to the start of the time interval in which they occur. You can simply adjust this by, for example, using

dt1 <- data.table(chickweed)
dt1[, Germinated := mean(count)/200, by=start]
dt1[, cum_Germinated := cumsum(Germinated)]
dt1[, Pred := c(predict(object=chickweed.m1), NA)]  # Note that the final time period which ends at `Inf` can not be predicted by the model, therefore added `NA` in the final row

ggplot(data= dt1, mapping=aes(x=end, y=cum_Germinated)) + 
  geom_point() +
  geom_line(aes(y = Pred)) +
  lims(y=c(0, 0.25)) +
  theme_bw()

Answer 2

Getting the intuition from the answer of @dww, I had to make two little changes in my original code. Just replacing start!=0 by end!=Inf in

dt1Means1 <- dt1[, .(Germinated=mean(count)/200), by=.(start, end)]
dt1Means  <- data.table(dt1Means2[start!=0], Pred=predict(object=chickweed.m1))

gives the right graph.

Answer 3

I really like the solution that dww presents. Might I suggest a generalization to this solution. By adding the lines below to the self-written version of drc:::plotdrc() you can generalize the solution. The function takes the input of the drc:::plotdrc() function but outputs a ggplot-object with equal specifications as the default base-plot output of the original function.

just replace invisible(retData, plotPoints) with

result <- list(retData, plotPoints) 
points <- as.data.frame(result[[2]])
drc.fit <- as.data.frame(result[[1]]) 
names(points) <- c("x", "y")
names(drc.fit) <- c("x", "y")` 

gg_plot <- ggplot2::ggplot(data=points, aes(x = x, y = y)) + 
geom_point() +
geom_line(data=drc.fit, aes(x = x, y = y)) +
scale_x_continuous(trans='log10', limits = xlim) +
ylab(ylab) +
xlab(xlab) +
lims(y = ylim) +
theme_bw()
return(gg_plot)`