Blogs / Personal blogs

Mike Bostock

bost.ocks.org

Popular posts
7
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2,631
HN comments
699
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#578 personal

Visit bost.ocks.org → On Hacker News Feb 2012 – Nov 2014

Software Engineering 4Web & Frontend 3Databases & Data 3Design & UX 2Tools & Productivity 1Math & Algorithms 1

1

Visualizing Algorithms

Algorithms are a fascinating use case for visualization. To visualize an algorithm, we don’t merely fit data to a chart; there is no primary dataset. Instead there are logical rules that describe behavior. This may be why algorithm visualizations are so unusual, as designers experiment with novel forms to better…

2

Why Use Make

I love Make . You may think of Make as merely a tool for building large binaries or libraries (and it is, almost to a fault), but it’s much more than that. Makefiles are machine-readable documentation that make your workflow reproducible.

3

How To Scroll

Scroll-based interaction is incredibly popular for interactive storytelling . There are many compelling reasons for this, yet scrolling is surprisingly nuanced and easy to break. So here are five rules for employing scrolling effectively.

4

How D3 Selections Work

In the past I have presented simplified descriptions of D3 ’s selections, providing only enough detail to get started. This article takes a more comprehensive approach; rather than saying how to use selections , I will explain how selections are implemented . This may take longer to read, but it should dispel any…

5

Map Simplification with Visvalingam's Algorithm

An interesting challenge in cartography is getting data of the appropriate resolution. As Lewis Fry Richardson observed , the more precisely you measure the length of a coastline, the longer it appears; geographic shapes have infinite complexity. Digital displays, in contrast, are limited by pixels. Choosing too high…

6

Let’s Make a Bubble Map

My previous Let’s Make a Map tutorial describes how to make a basic map with D3 and TopoJSON ; now it’s time to cover thematic mapping in the form of a proportional symbol map. The simplest symbol is a circle, or bubble , whose area is proportional to the associated data. In this tutorial, we’ll make a bubble map of…

7

D3: Thinking with Joins

Say you’re making a basic scatterplot using D3 , and you need to create some SVG circle elements to visualize your data. You may be surprised to discover that D3 has no primitive for creating multiple DOM elements. Wait, WAT?