D3

Data Driven Documents, aka D3, isn’t a library of functions that create graphs rather it’s a library of helper functions to aid in the creation of graphs. This means it requires more effort to create a graph using d3, so it isn’t appropriate for the exploration of data, but it is less restrictive. Which is why it is often used for interactive data or fancy data visualisation.

Be advised that d3 assumes that the origin is in the top left corner of the screen. This is might lead to y axis manipulations and such being the reverse from what you expect.

So far I have these notes on D3:

• Basic setup for loading data, creating a scale and adding axis.
• Line graph with legend for using a line generator and drawing text elements.
• D3 & Node for using d3 outside of the browser to creates image files.
• Line graph with error bars for simple use of the join pattern and symbols.
• Zoom & Pan for adding zooming and panning behaviour to a graph.
• Simple animated graph for using transitions to create simple animations.

Btw this page has the d3 library loaded and there’s an empty #anchor div below so you can easily perform simple experiments using the browser’s developer console.