ggsem: An R Package for Interactive and Reproducible Visualizations of Networks and Structural Equation Modeling Diagrams

ggsem is an R package designed for interactive and reproducible SEM visualization. It provides a dedicated environment for building, styling, and exploring path diagrams for structural equation modeling (SEM) and network analysis.

Why use ggsem for SEM Visualization?

• Interactive Parameter Visualization: Direct manipulation of nodes, edges, and labels without manual coding of coordinates.
• Multi-Group SEM Support: Easily create side-by-side or composite visualizations for multi-group SEM diagrams.
• Workflow Integration: Seamlessly import model objects from lavaan, blavaan, OpenMx, tidySEM, and semPlot etc (from 9 classes of objects, 13 packages).
• Complete Reproducibility: Export figure metadata to recreate or modify your ggplot2 diagrams via script at any time.
• AI-Assisted Modeling: Built-in support for translating natural language to statistical models or vice versa using LLMs for visualizing path diagrams.

Documentation & Examples

For detailed guides on multi-group workflows and interactive features, visit the official documentation: 👉 ggsem Documentation Website

Installation using RStudio

Install the stable version of ggsem from CRAN:

# Optional: Install dependencies first
# install.packages(c("colourpicker", "DT", "DiagrammeR", "memoise", "shiny", "shinyjs", "smplot2", "svglite"), dependencies = TRUE)

install.packages("ggsem")

To launch the interactive app:

library(ggsem)
ggsem()

Issues and contact

If you find any issues with ggsem (both application and package), please contact me via email (seung.min@mail.mcgill.ca).