Plot Matrix Columns as Lines in Base R

To plot matrix columns as lines in base R, we can use matplot function but we need to read the matrix as a data frame using as.data.frame function and for creating lines the type argument will be used. For example, if we have a matrix called M then the columns of M can be plotted as lines using the command matplot(as.data.frame(M),type="l").

Consider the below data frame −

Example

 Live Demo

M<-matrix(rpois(100,10),nrow=20)
M

Output

    [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]
[1,] 13    5    5   11   11
[2,] 10   18    8    6    5
[3,] 12    8    9    9   10
[4,]  8    5    8    8    9
[5,] 15    7   15   15   10
[6,]  9    9    6   11    8
[7,]  9   18   12    9   14
[8,]  6   17    9    7    8
[9,] 14   15   13    8    9
[10,] 5    6   10   16    9
[11,] 6   10   11    9   12
[12,] 4    9    4    8   18
[13,] 15  11   10    7    7
[14,]  7   8    6    9    9
[15,]  9   7    6   14    9
[16,]  7   7   10   11   10
[17,]  6   9    3    7    8
[18,] 11  12    7    8    9
[19,]  9  12   12    7   10
[20,]  6  11    8    8   10

Creating a plot of columns of matrix M with lines −

Example

matplot(as.data.frame(M),type="l")

Output