D3 for the Impatient: Interactive Graphics for Programmers and Scientists

by Philipp Janert

Overview

If you’re in a hurry to learn D3.js, the leading JavaScript library for web-based graphics and visualization, this book is for you. Written for technically savvy readers with a background in programming or data science, the book moves quickly, emphasizing unifying concepts and patterns. Anticipating common difficulties, author Philipp K. Janert teaches you how to apply D3 to your own problems.

Assuming only a general programming background, but no previous experience with contemporary web development, this book explains supporting technologies such as SVG, HTML5, CSS, and the DOM as needed, making it a convenient one-stop resource for a technical audience.

• Understand D3 selections, the library’s fundamental organizing principle
• Learn how to create data-driven documents with data binding
• Create animated graphs and interactive user interfaces
• Draw figures with curves, shapes, and colors
• Use the built-in facilities for heatmaps, tree graphs, and networks
• Simplify your work by writing your own reusable components

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781492046776
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	05/16/2019
Pages:	254
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Philipp K. Janert is the author of “Data Analysis with Open Source Tools” (O’Reilly, 2010) and “Feedback Control for Computer Systems” (O’Reilly, 2013) as well as “Gnuplot in Action” (first and second edition, Manning, 2009 and 2015). He has worked as a programmer and scientist, in small startups and large corporations. He holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics.

Table of Contents

Preface v

1 Introduction 1

Whom This Book Is For 2

Why D3? 3

What Is in This Book 4

How to Read This Book 5

Conventions 6

2 Let's Make Some Graphs, Already! 11

A First Example: A Single Data Set 11

A Second Example: Two Data Sets 16

A Third Example: Animating List Items 27

3 The Heart of the Matter: Selecting and Binding 31

Selections 32

Binding Data 38

Manipulating Selections 46

Shared Parent Information Among Selections with Groups 53

4 Events, Interactivity, and Animation 55

Events 55

Exploring Graphs with the Mouse 58

Smooth Transitions 67

Animation with Timer Events 75

5 Generators, Components, Layouts: Drawing Curves and Shapes 81

Generators, Components, and Layouts 81

Symbols 83

Lines and Curves 92

Circles, Arcs, and Pie Charts: Working with Layouts 100

Other Shapes 105

Writing Your Own Components 106

6 Files, Fetches, Formats: Getting Data In and Out 113

Fetching a File 113

Parsing and Writing Tabular Data 119

Formatting Numbers 124

7 Values to Visuals: Interpolations, Scales, and Axes 129

Interpolation 130

Scales 132

Axes 140

Examples 146

8 Colors, Color Scales, and Heatmaps 153

Colors and Color Space Conversions 153

Color Schemes 156

Color Scales 160

False-Color Graphs and Related Techniques 164

9 Trees and Networks 173

Trees and Hierarchical Data Structures 173

Force-Based Particle Arrangements 181

10 Utilities: Arrays, Statistics, and Timestamps 191

Structural Array Manipulations 191

Descriptive Statistics for Numerical Arrays 192

Working with Dates and Timestamps 196

A Setup, Tools, Resources 203

B An SVG Survival Kit 207

C Hitchhiker's Guide to JavaScript and the DOM 219

Index 237