Changelog • ggcube

ggcube (development version)

Changes to default behaviors, which slightly alter styling relative to prior version:

coord_3d() now draws axis ticks by default, whereas previously axis ticks were not implemented. They can be removed or styled with the standard axis.ticks and axis.ticks.length theme elements plus a new axis.ticks.z.
Axis text now gets depth scaling, i.e. perspective-based sizing, by default. (Axis titles remain unscaled.) You can use coord_3d(scale_depth = c(text = FALSE)) to opt out.
Axis text and title placement is now computed at draw time from measured text dimensions. This fixes inexact size estimates that previously sometimes led to text overlapping titles and/or axes on small devices.

New options:

Lighting can now be set for a whole plot by adding light() to it, e.g. ggplot(...) + coord_3d() + light(direction = c(1, 0, 0)). This is the recommended way to specify plot-level lighting, and works regardless of where it appears in the plot expression. The light argument of coord_3d() continues to work; supplying both is an error.
light("none") is a new way to disable lighting, equivalent to the string "none" accepted by light arguments.
scale_depth arguments are now more customizable: in 3D layer functions you can now pass continuous values to reduce or exaggerate the effect (rather than just a logical flag), and in coord_3d() you have more granular control over scaling for gridlines, ticks, and axis text.

Bug fixes:

Fixed a bug where scale_z_continuous() and scale_z_discrete() stored z scales in a package-level cache, causing plots to sometimes contaminate each other’s z-axis ranges. Now, the z scale is stored directly in the plot being built, preventing cross-contamination.
geom_hull_3d()’s "alpha" method got some bug fixes related to face orientation and the radius parameter.

CRAN release: 2026-07-21

The new orbit_3d() function builds HTML widgets that let you interactively rotate ggcube plots.
Plotmath is now supported in axis text and titles; e.g., xlab(expression(italic(alpha[1]))) now behaves as expected.
Fixed several bugs, including issues with element_rect(), guide_legend_3d(), and camera-anchored lighting.

CRAN release: 2026-05-27