ABOUT THIS BOOK
xv
The next five chapters use
D3
in the ways we typically think of. Chapter 4 teaches
you how to create simple graphics from data, such as line charts, axes, and boxplots.
Chapter 5 gives an in-depth exploration of various traditional data visualization lay-
outs like pie charts, tree layouts, and word clouds. Chapter 6 is devoted to network
visualization, which might seem exotic, but network visualization is being used more
and more in a variety of domains. Chapter 7 dives into the rich mapping capabilities
in
D3
, and includes leveraging Topo
JSON
to do interesting geodata manipulation in
the browser. Chapter 8 is devoted to manipulating traditional
HTML
elements, like
paragraphs and lists, to demonstrate that
D3
is not tied to
SVG
.
The last three chapters and chapter 12 (online only) cover topics that can be con-
sidered deep diving into
D3
. I’ve found that each has become an important part of my
own practice. This includes principles for wiring up your own data dashboard, creat-
ing your own
D3
layouts and components, optimizing data visualization for large data-
sets, and writing data visualization for mobile. Even if you don’t think you’ll ever be
using
D3
in these ways, each of these chapters still touches on key aspects of using
D3
.
How to use this book
If you’re just getting started with
D3
, I suggest going through chapters 1 through 4 in
order. Each chapter builds on the last and establishes the basic principles not only of
D3
but also of data visualization. After that, it depends on what you plan to use
D3
for. If
your data is mostly geographic, then you can jump to chapter 7, and similarly, if your
data is mostly network data, you can jump to chapter 6. If you’re doing traditional data
visualization, then I suggest going to chapter 5 and then on to chapter 9 to start think-
ing about dashboards, which are a key component of traditional data visualization.
If you’ve been using
D3
for a while and want to improve your skills, I suggest skim-
ming the first three chapters. The parts that I think might be of particular interest are
in chapter 3, and deal with color and loading external resources like
SVG
icons or
HTML
content. You might also want to review generators and components in chap-
ter 4 to fill in any gaps you might have dealing with these common, but often under-
examined, parts of
D3
. After that, it depends on what you see as your strengths and
what you see as your goals for using
D3
. If you want to maximize traditional data
visualization, take a look at chapter 5 to see the layouts, and then look at chapter 9
for dashboards. You’re probably familiar with most of the content there, but these
chapters deal with it more exhaustively than you likely have experienced. After that,
look at chapter 11 and see if there are any optimization techniques you might want
to bring into your data visualization, or look at chapter 8 and think about how you
might use the
D3
tricks you know to build
UI
elements and otherwise do traditional
web development.
Much of the value of this book comes in chapters 6 and 7, which go into great
detail about using
D3
for two major areas of data visualization: networks and maps.
Along those lines, the use of
HTML5
canvas in chapters 8 and 11 is an area that even
experienced
D3
developers might not be familiar with.