Real-Data Lens

This vignette complements the synthetic showcase with real offline datasets that exercise the renderer on:

a raster scalar field
observed storm trajectories
a dense 10,000-point projection
fixed-scale faceted dense point panels

The goal is evidence rather than maximal detail. Every example is built from packaged data that is available without network access.

Code examples are shown by default. Live WebGL widgets are disabled during CRAN, package checks, and CI. Rich local or pkgdown rendering requires GGWEBGL_EVAL_COVERAGE_VIGNETTE=true and GGWEBGL_EVAL_LIVE_WIDGETS=true.

For network-enabled environments, inst/scripts/download_mnist_embedding.R provides an optional path to a larger MNIST-style embedding export. The packaged vignette keeps the offline dense embedding so the article builds reliably everywhere.

Example 1: Topographic Raster Field

Why this example matters. This is the raster path on a real elevation grid. It exists to demonstrate that geom_raster_webgl() is now a rendered raster field, not only an exported placeholder.

What to inspect. Terrain structure should remain continuous during pan and zoom, and interpolation should avoid visible block artifacts in the default example.

real_examples$volcano_dem

ggplot_webgl(real_examples$volcano_dem+theme_webgl(shader = "default"), height = 620)

ggplot_webgl(real_examples$volcano_dem, height = 620)

Example 2: Observed Storm Trajectories

Why this example matters. This is the real trajectory case. It demonstrates the package on geographic path bundles with real timestamps, wind speeds, and pressure measurements behind the rendered lines.

What to inspect. Age shading and endpoint emphasis should make direction and final position legible across multiple storms.

real_examples$storm_tracks

ggplot_webgl(real_examples$storm_tracks+theme_webgl(shader = "default"), height = 620)

ggplot_webgl(real_examples$storm_tracks, height = 620)

Example 3: Dense Real-World Embedding

Why this example matters. This is the dense point-cloud case using a real 10,000-point feature projection. It tests whether the point renderer remains legible on a real dense distribution instead of only on synthetic blobs.

What to inspect. Look for high-density accumulation without collapse into an undifferentiated cloud.

real_examples$dense_embedding

ggplot_webgl(real_examples$dense_embedding+theme_webgl(shader = "default"), height = 620)

ggplot_webgl(real_examples$dense_embedding, height = 620)

Example 4: Fixed-Scale Faceted Panels

Why this example matters. This is the facet-support case. It exercises the new multi-panel layout on dense real point data.

What to inspect. Each panel should clip correctly, preserve its own interaction state, and remain comparable because scales stay fixed across panels.

real_examples$faceted_embedding

ggplot_webgl(real_examples$faceted_embedding+theme_webgl(shader = "default"), height = 720)

ggplot_webgl(real_examples$faceted_embedding, height = 720)

Real-Data Demo

The same real-data scenes are available in a Shiny app:

source(system.file("examples", "shiny", "real-data-demo.R", package = "ggWebGL"))

And as standalone HTML exports: