{"id":1105,"date":"2015-02-24T15:11:29","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T21:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/billdwhite.com\/?p=1105"},"modified":"2015-02-24T15:11:29","modified_gmt":"2015-02-24T21:11:29","slug":"book-review-learning-d3-js-mapping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billdwhite.com\/wordpress\/2015\/02\/24\/book-review-learning-d3-js-mapping\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Learning D3.js Mapping"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was recently asked to review a copy of PacktPub’s<\/a> “Learning D3.js Mapping”<\/a> by Thomas Newton and Oscar Villarreal. I’ve done a good deal of d3 development, but the mapping portion of the library has not received much of my attention until now. A fellow d3 developer and leader of our local d3 Meetup group<\/a>, Andrew Thornton<\/a>, has done considerable work with d3-driven mapping applications and it is something I’ve always wanted to delve into but never really had the chance. This book served as that motivation and while it is relatively short, it provides as a great introduction to generating maps in d3 and demonstrates just how powerful the library truly is for creating geographic visualizations.<\/p>\n

The book starts by laying out the basic setup for running the provided code samples. They suggest running with the code using a local nodejs http-server, but you can just as easily run the examples directly from the downloaded code samples folder, or using an online IDE such as CodePen<\/a> or JSBin<\/a>, although you will need to have access to the hosted sample JSON data files used in the examples. A basic foundation of SVG fundamentals is also provided, which can be useful for those just getting started with SVG-based data visualizations. While the more seasoned d3 developers will be inclined to skip this section, the authors focus a good deal on SVG elements such as paths, which foreshadows their importance in creating maps later in the book. The third chapter is a d3 primer, providing some history behind the library itself. The enter\/update\/exit<\/a> lifecycle is described although novice readers will want to read further about this before attempting the more advanced d3 code samples.<\/p>\n

The meat of the book is found starting with chapter 4 where you create your first map. The reader is introduced to projections which handle the conversion of coordinates from one space to another. The authors do a good job of covering supporting topics such as scaling and translations which may be new to some readers. Later on in the chapter, an approach to creating choropleths (a fancy way of saying “color-filled maps”) is discussed which introduces the beginners to the use of d3 scales for mapping colors to values, handling click events and adding transitions to spruce up the user interaction. Again, nothing new for most d3 experts, but the authors are clearly trying not to leave anyone out with respect to programming backgrounds. Below is an example of one of the code samples discussed in Chapter 4:<\/p>\n

See the Pen d3 Mapping demo 1<\/a> by Bill White (@billdwhite<\/a>) on CodePen<\/a>.<\/p>\n