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Multidimensional scaling in two dimensions

In this exercise, you will perform multidimensional scaling of state.x77 and plot the resulting object locations in a two dimensional space.

This exercise is part of the course

Multivariate Probability Distributions in R

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Exercise instructions

  • Compute the distance matrix and assign it to an object state.dist.
  • Compute the multidimensional scaling of the data on the distance matrix.
  • Use the ggplot() function to plot the representation of the state.x77 data in two dimensions. Color the state names by their region using the vector state.region.

Hands-on interactive exercise

Have a go at this exercise by completing this sample code.

# Calculate distance 
state.dist <- dist(___)

# Perform multidimensional scaling 
mds.state <- cmdscale(___) 

# Change mds.state to a data frame for use in ggplot
mds.state_df <- data.frame(mds.state)

# Plot the representation of the data in two dimensions 
ggplot(data = ___, aes(x = X1, y = X2, label = rownames(mds.state), color = ____)) + 
    geom_text(alpha = 0.8, size = 3) 
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