r - Plot 4 curves in a single plot with 3 y-axes

Question

I have 4 sets of values: y1, y2, y3, y4 and one set x. The y values are of different ranges, and I need to plot them as separate curves with separate sets of values on the y-axis.

To put it simple, I need 3 y-axes with different values (scales) for plotting on the same figure.

Answer 1

Try this out....

# The data have a common independent variable (x)
x <- 1:10

# Generate 4 different sets of outputs
y1 <- runif(10, 0, 1)
y2 <- runif(10, 100, 150)
y3 <- runif(10, 1000, 2000)
y4 <- runif(10, 40000, 50000)
y <- list(y1, y2, y3, y4)

# Colors for y[[2]], y[[3]], y[[4]] points and axes
colors = c("red", "blue", "green")

# Set the margins of the plot wider
par(oma = c(0, 2, 2, 3))

plot(x, y[[1]], yaxt = "n", xlab = "Common x-axis", main = "A bunch of plots on the same graph", 
     ylab = "")
lines(x, y[[1]])

# We use the "pretty" function go generate nice axes
axis(at = pretty(y[[1]]), side = 2)

# The side for the axes.  The next one will go on 
# the left, the following two on the right side
sides <- list(2, 4, 4) 

# The number of "lines" into the margin the axes will be
lines <- list(2, NA, 2)

for(i in 2:4) {
  par(new = TRUE)
  plot(x, y[[i]], axes = FALSE, col = colors[i - 1], xlab = "", ylab = "")
  axis(at = pretty(y[[i]]), side = sides[[i-1]], line = lines[[i-1]], 
      col = colors[i - 1])
  lines(x, y[[i]], col = colors[i - 1])
}

# Profit.