[R] Question about banking to 45 degrees.

[Joshua Hertlein]

Hello,

  I am very interested in "banking to 45 degrees" as defined by William S. Cleveland in "Visualizing Data."  I like to do it in R as well as Excel, etc.  With R I have come across the following method:

xyplot(x, y, aspect="xy")       (part of "lattice" package)

which will bank my graph to 45 degrees.  My question is how do I obtain the aspect ratio that banks this graph to 45 degrees?  I understand that R does it for me, but I would like to explicitly know the aspect ratio so that I can configure other graphs in Excel or other software.  

aspect ratio = v / h    (v is vertical distance of plot, h is horizontal distance of plot.  NOT in the data units, but true, actual distance).

I've also come across "banking ()", but I don't understand it, nor the significance of the value it returns.  Regardless, it doesn't seem to be the aspect ratio that I am looking for.

I'd appreciate any help.

Thanks in advance!

~Josh
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