[SOLVED] Create bubble chart similar to d3.js force layout using ggplot2

Create bubble chart similar to d3.js force layout using ggplot2

Is it possible to make a bubble chart similar to this one using R, preferably ggplot2?

Given that there are three categories in this example, the properties are

all circles attract one another (to clump circles together)
collision detection (to stop circles overlapping)
circles are attracted to one of three centers, depending on their category

data (though I am really sure what the data should look like for a plot of this kind)

set.seed(1)
dat <- data.frame(category = rep(c("A", "B", "C"), each = 10),
                  bubble = rep(1:10, 3),
                  radius = round(runif(30, min = 0.5, max = 3), 2),
                  stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
dat

~~I'm tagging this with d3.js - which I am not familiar with - although the question is about R. I hope to attract community members that are familiar with either.~~ But feel free to edit the tags and/or post.

Thanks.

Solution

Needs some further work/investigation in the layout but here's an approach.

library(packcircles)
library(tidyverse)

set.seed(1)
dat <- data.frame(category = rep(c("A", "B", "C"), each = 10),
                  id = 1:30,
                  radius = round(runif(30, min = 0.5, max = 3), 2),
                  stringsAsFactors = FALSE)

#Create layouts for each group by splitting, mapping and recombining
dat.gg <- dat %>% 
  split(.$category) %>% 
  map(~circleProgressiveLayout(.x$radius, sizetype='radius')) %>% 
  imap_dfr(~circleLayoutVertices(.x, npoints=50) %>% mutate(category = .y))

#Do the thing
ggplot() + 
  geom_polygon(data = dat.gg, aes(x, y, group = id, fill = category), colour = "black", alpha = 0.6) +
  facet_wrap(~category) +
  scale_fill_viridis_d() +
  theme_void() + 
  theme(legend.position="none", plot.margin=unit(c(0,0,0,0),"cm") ) + 
  coord_equal()

^{Created on 2018-11-20 by the reprex package (v0.2.1)}