rjdqa
rjdqa keeps refining one screen: the seasonal adjustment quality dashboard
Comparison · Analytics
oblicubes vs survminer
A side-by-side editorial comparison of oblicubes and survminer — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:rggplot2
oblicubes vs survminer: at a glance
What is oblicubes?
A tiny grid renderer for oblique-projection cubes, complete since its first release.
oblicubes draws 3D cubes and cuboids in oblique projection as grid grobs, with ggplot2 geom wrappers and a height-matrix helper for turning elevation data into coordinates. The entire feature set arrived in the initial 0.1.2 release, adapted from coolbutuseless's isocubes and cj-holmes's isocuboids. The two releases since have widened compatibility rather than added anything.
What is survminer?
survminer is back after a five-year gap, and spending it cutting dependencies loose.
survminer draws Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox diagnostics on top of ggplot2, and it sits under a large share of published survival figures. After a long dormancy it has shipped three releases since late 2024, and all of them are about staying compatible: with ggplot2 3.5, then 4.0, and now without survMisc, whose weighted log-rank tests are computed internally in base R as of 0.5.2. The plotting API itself has not changed.
oblicubes vs survminer: editorial side-by-side
oblicubes
0.0ANALYTICS
A tiny grid renderer for oblique-projection cubes, complete since its first release.
◆ Current state
oblicubes draws 3D cubes and cuboids in oblique projection as grid grobs, with ggplot2 geom wrappers and a height-matrix helper for turning elevation data into coordinates. The entire feature set arrived in the initial 0.1.2 release, adapted from coolbutuseless's isocubes and cj-holmes's isocuboids. The two releases since have widened compatibility rather than added anything.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is finished and its maintainer is treating it that way. 1.0.0 removed the R 4.1 native pipe from examples specifically so earlier R versions could use it — reaching backward, not forward — and added image alt text. The only change since is swapping a deprecated dplyr call in examples.
◆ Prediction
Expect nothing beyond occasional dependency deprecation fixes; the release pattern shows a small, deliberately complete package being kept installable.
survminer
0.0ANALYTICS
survminer is back after a five-year gap, and spending it cutting dependencies loose.
◆ Current state
survminer draws Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox diagnostics on top of ggplot2, and it sits under a large share of published survival figures. After a long dormancy it has shipped three releases since late 2024, and all of them are about staying compatible: with ggplot2 3.5, then 4.0, and now without survMisc, whose weighted log-rank tests are computed internally in base R as of 0.5.2. The plotting API itself has not changed.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a revival by maintenance, not by feature work — the same pattern as its sibling packages from the same author. The dependency surface is being reduced rather than extended, and each release absorbs a breaking change from ggplot2 that would otherwise leave existing scripts producing errors or misaligned risk tables. Compatibility fixes now arrive within months of the upstream change rather than years.
◆ Prediction
Continued ggplot2 4.x tracking is the most likely next release content, since 0.5.2 already carries fixes for 4.0.x aesthetics and the GeomConfint stairstep problem.
Alternatives to oblicubes and survminer
Other Analytics products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either oblicubes or survminer.
epikit
epikit narrows to field-epidemiology helpers, handing proportions to a sibling package
SimInf
SimInf 10.0 turns an epidemic simulator into a tool that fits models to real time series
mutagen
A young package porting Stata's egen row-wise helpers to the tidyverse, one function per release
broman
A statistician's personal toolbox, growing one plotting utility at a time
qtl
R/qtl is in pure custodial mode: every recent release answers a compiler, not a user
See all oblicubes alternatives → · See all survminer alternatives →
Recent activity from oblicubes and survminer
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 5mo agosurvminersurvMisc dependency removed; weighted log-rank tests moved in-house
- 6mo agooblicubesExamples updated to dplyr::reframe()
- 11mo agosurvminerRisk-table misalignment fixed via dynamic panel detection
- 1y agooblicubesR 4.1 pipe removed from examples; image alt text added
- 1y agosurvminerggcoxzph() sd scaling corrected; tidyverse deprecations cleared
- 3y agooblicubesInitial release: oblique-projection cube and cuboid grobs
- 5y agosurvminerGehan-Breslow p-value corrected for log.rank.weights = n
- 6y agosurvminerbroom 0.7.0 compatibility fix in ggforest()
- 6y agosurvminersurv_adjustedcurves() separates computation from plotting
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between oblicubes and survminer?
Both compete on the same themes — r, ggplot2 — within Analytics. oblicubes and survminer are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is oblicubes better than survminer?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. oblicubes and survminer are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to oblicubes?
Top oblicubes alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "oblicubes alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/oblicubes-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to survminer?
Top survminer alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "survminer alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/survminer for the full list with editorial commentary on each.