The visualization can be achieved using geom_line() in ggplot2 or simply using the plot() function in Base R.In this tutorial, I will introduce a new tool to visualize Time Series Data called Time-Series Calendar Heatmap..We will look at how Time-Series Calendar Heatmaps can be drawn using ggplot2..We will also explore the calendarHeat() function written by Paul Bleicher (released as open source under GPL license) which provides an easy way to create the visualization.MotivationIf you have ever been to GitHub, you would have definitely stumbled across the below chart which shows the number of contributions made by a user over the past year..The color of the tiles are representative of the number of contributions (as described by the legend at the bottom right of the chart)..Here, the calendar heatmap provides a visually appealing way to visualize the number of commits made by the user across the year in a calendar-like view, making it easy to identify daily patterns or anomalies.Heatmap from GithubAnother great example can be found on the below article by Wall Street Journal, which shows the number of infected people measured over 70 years across all 50 states in the US.http://graphics.wsj.com/infectious-diseases-and-vaccines/Over here, the calendar heatmap makes it easy to identify yearly patterns in the number of infected people for various diseases.Case StudyTo illustrate the use of Calendar Heatmaps, we will visualize Amazon’s stock price (NASDAQ: AMZN) over the past 5 years..We will be looking at the Adjusted Closing Prices, which will be obtained through the tidyquant package.PackagesWe will install and import the tidyquant package to obtain the stock prices of Amazon..We will also install and import ggplot2 to perform the visualization..The R code for calendarHeat() can be downloaded through Paul Bleicher’s Github page.# install tidyquant install.packages('tidyquant', repos = "http://cran.us.r-project.org")library(tidyquant) #install ggplot2 install.packages("ggplot2", repos = "http://cran.us.r-project.org") library(ggplot2) #Load the function to the local through Paul Bleicher's GitHub pagesource("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iascchen/VisHealth/master/R/calendarHeat.R")Loading the DataamznStock = as.data.frame(tidyquant::tq_get(c("AMZN"),get="stock.prices")) # get data using tidyquant amznStock = amznStock[year(amznStock$date) > 2012, ] # Using data only after 2012Using ggplot2Using ggplot2The process of creating a calendar heatmap with ggplot2 is somewhat cumbersome..We need to get the data in the right shape before the heatmap can be made..The below code lists the step as to how we can munge the data for creating the calendar heatmap using ggplot2.library(plyr)library(plotly)amznStock$weekday = as.POSIXlt(amznStock$date)$wday #finding the day no..of the weekamznStock$weekdayf<-factor(amznStock$weekday,levels=rev(1:7),labels=rev(c("Mon","Tue","Wed","Thu","Fri","Sat","Sun")),ordered=TRUE) #converting the day no..to factor amznStock$monthf<-factor(month(amznStock$date),levels=as.character(1:12),labels=c("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug","Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"),ordered=TRUE) # finding the month amznStock$yearmonth<- factor(as.yearmon(amznStock$date)) #finding the year and the month from the date.. More details