Getting Started with D3

Chapter 6. Conclusion

The aim of this book was to introduce the basic aspects of using D3. We have seen how to build up and serve simple visualizations using both HTML and SVG. We’ve seen how D3 allows us to join together elements of data set with elements of a web page, and how we can modify the attributes of those web page elements based on the data. We’ve used D3’s scale objects to map data values onto pixels and colors. We’ve used D3’s axis and line generators to simplify the basic aspects of building visualizations, and D3’s interaction and transitions capabilities to create an engaging UI. Finally, we touched on some more complex tools that D3 provides in order to lay out more demanding, modern visualizations.

What Next?

This book has scraped only the surface of D3, there is a lot more to be explored. A good place to start reading further is Mike Bostock’s blog posts on all sorts of aspects of D3 available at http://bost.ocks.org/mike/. These posts go into depth on some more advanced topics, and provide a great selection of examples, talks, and academic articles. Of particular note are those articles that talk about best practices, which become very important as you make more serious visualizations for publication.

The documentation for D3 is extensive, and is available at http://d3js.org along with a huge gallery of examples. This is an essential resource, both for reference and inspiration.

Finally, the community around D3 is very active and friendly, and growing ...