geom_image object displaying as a filled geom and not as an image

Question

I am trying to categorise image asset performance in a Google ad and want to use geom_image() to add the actual image to the plot so I know which one is performing best. I have added images to plots before, and it has worked so I am using the same basic code layout. My issue is that the images are being plotted as filled geoms and are coloured the same as my specified colour values:

Below is the code that I have used. I changed the actual images to an image of a ball for reprex purposes. When I run it like this, the issue persists. I suspect the issue is in how I am expressing things in aes() but I am not sure how I should change it. Ideally the filled geoms would all be images of the ball.

# Packages
library(tidyverse)
library(ggimage)
library(ggchicklet)

# Create sample data
df <- data.frame(
  Asset = c("running_wide", "biomechanicsMan_wide", "running_square", "mandelbrot_wide", 
            "mandelbrot_square", "lines_wide", "systems_square", "systems_wide", "lines_square"),
  status = rep("Enabled", 9),
  Asset_type = c("Image", "Image", "Square image", "Image", "Square image", "Image", "Square image", "Image", "Square image"),
  Performance = c("Best", "Best", "Best", "Best", "Low", "Best", "Good", "Best", "Good"),
  Asset_source = rep("Advertiser", 9),
  val = rep(10, 9),
  font_size = c(10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10),
  asset_name = rep("ball", 9),
  path = rep("https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Basketball.png/220px-Basketball.png", 9)
)



ggplot(df, aes(x = reorder(Asset, font_size), y = val, fill = Performance, colour = Performance)) + 
  geom_chicklet(width = 0.9, alpha = 0.3, size = 1) + 
  scale_fill_manual(values = c("Best" = "#D6AF36", 
                               "Good" = "#A7A7AD",
                               "Low" = "#A77044"), name = NULL) + 
  scale_colour_manual(values = c("Best" = "#D6AF36", 
                                 "Good" = "#A7A7AD",
                                 "Low" = "#A77044"), name = NULL) +   
  geom_image(aes(x = reorder(Asset, font_size), y = 1, image = path), size = 0.08) +
  coord_flip() +
  theme_void() + 
  theme(
    legend.title = element_text(size = 16),
    legend.text=element_text(size=13)
  )

Answer 1

In your code, your fill the images with colors. Just move aes(fill = Performance, colour = Performance) from ggplot() to geom_chicklet() line:

ggplot(df, aes(x = reorder(Asset, font_size), y = val)) + 
  geom_chicklet(aes(fill = Performance, colour = Performance), width = 0.9, alpha = 0.3, size = 1) + 
  scale_fill_manual(values = c("Best" = "#D6AF36", 
                               "Good" = "#A7A7AD",
                               "Low" = "#A77044"), name = NULL) + 
  scale_colour_manual(values = c("Best" = "#D6AF36", 
                                 "Good" = "#A7A7AD",
                                 "Low" = "#A77044"), name = NULL) +   
  geom_image(aes(x = reorder(Asset, font_size), y = 1, image = path), size = 0.08) +
  coord_flip() +
  theme_void() + 
  theme(
    legend.title = element_text(size = 16),
    legend.text=element_text(size=13)
  )