D3.js vs WebGL

Overview

D3.js

Stacks2.0K

Followers1.7K

Votes653

GitHub Stars111.7K

Forks22.9K

WebGL

Stacks183

Followers200

Votes0

D3.js vs WebGL: What are the differences?

Introduction

D3.js and WebGL are both powerful tools used for creating interactive visualizations on the web. However, they have some key differences that set them apart in terms of their capabilities and use cases. In this article, we will explore the main differences between D3.js and WebGL.

Rendering Approach: D3.js is primarily a data-driven library that uses HTML, SVG, and CSS to render visual elements on the web. It provides a high-level, declarative approach to building visualizations, allowing developers to define the desired outcome without specifying the detailed steps to achieve it. On the other hand, WebGL is a low-level JavaScript API that directly interacts with the graphics card, enabling developers to create high-performance 3D graphics and animations using hardware acceleration. It requires specifying all the rendering operations explicitly, providing more control over the rendering process.
3D Capabilities: D3.js is mainly focused on 2D visualizations and provides a rich set of tools for creating various types of charts, graphs, and maps. While it does support some limited 3D effects and interactions, its primary strength lies in 2D data visualization. In contrast, WebGL is specifically designed for 3D graphics rendering and provides full access to the GPU's capabilities. It allows developers to create complex 3D scenes, apply shaders and textures, and implement various lighting and material effects.
Performance: D3.js is optimized for handling large amounts of data and enables smooth transitions and animations in real-time. However, it operates at a higher level of abstraction, which can sometimes result in slower rendering performance compared to lower-level graphics libraries. WebGL, on the other hand, excels in performance-critical scenarios and is capable of achieving high frame rates even with complex 3D scenes. Its direct interaction with the GPU allows for efficient parallel processing and optimized rendering performance.
Learning Curve: D3.js, being a higher-level library, has a steeper learning curve due to its emphasis on data manipulation and visualization concepts. While it provides a wide range of features and customization options, mastering D3.js requires a good understanding of JavaScript, CSS, SVG, and data manipulation techniques. In contrast, WebGL has a lower-level API, which requires more knowledge of computer graphics programming, including vertex and fragment shaders, matrices, and 3D transformations.
Browser Support: D3.js is compatible with a wide range of browsers, as it mainly relies on HTML, SVG, and CSS, which are well-supported web technologies. It gracefully degrades on browsers that do not fully support SVG or CSS properties, providing a consistent experience across different platforms. WebGL, however, is a lower-level technology that relies on the presence of the WebGL API in the browser. While most modern browsers support WebGL, some older or less popular browsers may not have full or stable support for it.
Library Ecosystem: D3.js has a large and thriving community that has contributed a vast number of reusable visualizations, plugins, and extensions. It provides a rich ecosystem of resources, tutorials, and examples, making it easier to get started and find solutions for common visualization tasks. WebGL, being a lower-level graphics API, has a smaller community and a narrower scope of resources. While there are frameworks and libraries built on top of WebGL, the ecosystem is not as extensive as D3.js.

In summary, D3.js is a powerful data visualization library that excels at 2D visualizations and provides a high-level, declarative approach to building interactive charts and graphs. WebGL, on the other hand, is a low-level graphics API specifically designed for 3D rendering, offering unparalleled control, performance, and flexibility in creating complex 3D graphics and animations.

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Advice on D3.js, WebGL

Ayaskant

SSE-II at Akamai

Oct 25, 2019

Needs advice

I want to get suggestions on these 2 open source js libraries (D3.js & echarts) that help in creating charts or graphs on the UI. Which one will be better for bar graphs. Which is easy to learn and start with? Which provides better features and community support?

My requirements are 1 - Plot data in X-Y axis graph where x-axis will present time till seconds level and Y-Axis will present the data corresponding to that time.

2 - Zoom-in and zoom out feature.

56k views56k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

D3.js	WebGL
It is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. Emphasises on web standards gives you the full capabilities of modern browsers without tying yourself to a proprietary framework.	It is integrated completely into all the web standards of the browser allowing GPU accelerated usage of physics and image processing and effects as part of the web page canvas. Its elements can be mixed with other HTML elements.
Declarative Approach for Individual Nodes Manipulation; Functions Factory; Web Standards; Built-in ELement Inspector to Debug; Uses SVG, Canvas, and HTML; Data-driven approach to DOM Manipulation; Voronoi Diagrams; Maps and topo.	-
Statistics
GitHub Stars 111.7K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 22.9K	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 2.0K	Stacks 183
Followers 1.7K	Followers 200
Votes 653	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 195 Beautiful visualizations 103 Svg 92 Data-driven 81 Large set of examples 61 Data-driven documents Cons 11 Beginners cant understand at all 6 Complex syntax	No community feedback yet
Integrations
JavaScript React Native AngularJS React Bootstrap	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to D3.js, WebGL?

jQuery

jQuery is a cross-platform JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML.

AngularJS

AngularJS lets you write client-side web applications as if you had a smarter browser. It lets you use good old HTML (or HAML, Jade and friends!) as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly. It automatically synchronizes data from your UI (view) with your JavaScript objects (model) through 2-way data binding.

React

Lots of people use React as the V in MVC. Since React makes no assumptions about the rest of your technology stack, it's easy to try it out on a small feature in an existing project.

Vue.js

It is a library for building interactive web interfaces. It provides data-reactive components with a simple and flexible API.

jQuery UI

Whether you're building highly interactive web applications or you just need to add a date picker to a form control, jQuery UI is the perfect choice.

Svelte

If you've ever built a JavaScript application, the chances are you've encountered – or at least heard of – frameworks like React, Angular, Vue and Ractive. Like Svelte, these tools all share a goal of making it easy to build slick interactive user interfaces. Rather than interpreting your application code at run time, your app is converted into ideal JavaScript at build time. That means you don't pay the performance cost of the framework's abstractions, or incur a penalty when your app first loads.

Flux

Flux is the application architecture that Facebook uses for building client-side web applications. It complements React's composable view components by utilizing a unidirectional data flow. It's more of a pattern rather than a formal framework, and you can start using Flux immediately without a lot of new code.

Famo.us

Famo.us is a free and open source JavaScript platform for building mobile apps and desktop experiences. What makes Famo.us unique is its JavaScript rendering engine and 3D physics engine that gives developers the power and tools to build native quality apps and animations using pure JavaScript.

Highcharts

Highcharts currently supports line, spline, area, areaspline, column, bar, pie, scatter, angular gauges, arearange, areasplinerange, columnrange, bubble, box plot, error bars, funnel, waterfall and polar chart types.

Plotly.js

It is a standalone Javascript data visualization library, and it also powers the Python and R modules named plotly in those respective ecosystems (referred to as Plotly.py and Plotly.R). It can be used to produce dozens of chart types and visualizations, including statistical charts, 3D graphs, scientific charts, SVG and tile maps, financial charts and more.

Related Comparisons

D3.js vs WebGL: What are the differences?

Introduction

Rendering Approach: D3.js is primarily a data-driven library that uses HTML, SVG, and CSS to render visual elements on the web. It provides a high-level, declarative approach to building visualizations, allowing developers to define the desired outcome without specifying the detailed steps to achieve it. On the other hand, WebGL is a low-level JavaScript API that directly interacts with the graphics card, enabling developers to create high-performance 3D graphics and animations using hardware acceleration. It requires specifying all the rendering operations explicitly, providing more control over the rendering process.
3D Capabilities: D3.js is mainly focused on 2D visualizations and provides a rich set of tools for creating various types of charts, graphs, and maps. While it does support some limited 3D effects and interactions, its primary strength lies in 2D data visualization. In contrast, WebGL is specifically designed for 3D graphics rendering and provides full access to the GPU's capabilities. It allows developers to create complex 3D scenes, apply shaders and textures, and implement various lighting and material effects.
Performance: D3.js is optimized for handling large amounts of data and enables smooth transitions and animations in real-time. However, it operates at a higher level of abstraction, which can sometimes result in slower rendering performance compared to lower-level graphics libraries. WebGL, on the other hand, excels in performance-critical scenarios and is capable of achieving high frame rates even with complex 3D scenes. Its direct interaction with the GPU allows for efficient parallel processing and optimized rendering performance.
Learning Curve: D3.js, being a higher-level library, has a steeper learning curve due to its emphasis on data manipulation and visualization concepts. While it provides a wide range of features and customization options, mastering D3.js requires a good understanding of JavaScript, CSS, SVG, and data manipulation techniques. In contrast, WebGL has a lower-level API, which requires more knowledge of computer graphics programming, including vertex and fragment shaders, matrices, and 3D transformations.
Browser Support: D3.js is compatible with a wide range of browsers, as it mainly relies on HTML, SVG, and CSS, which are well-supported web technologies. It gracefully degrades on browsers that do not fully support SVG or CSS properties, providing a consistent experience across different platforms. WebGL, however, is a lower-level technology that relies on the presence of the WebGL API in the browser. While most modern browsers support WebGL, some older or less popular browsers may not have full or stable support for it.
Library Ecosystem: D3.js has a large and thriving community that has contributed a vast number of reusable visualizations, plugins, and extensions. It provides a rich ecosystem of resources, tutorials, and examples, making it easier to get started and find solutions for common visualization tasks. WebGL, being a lower-level graphics API, has a smaller community and a narrower scope of resources. While there are frameworks and libraries built on top of WebGL, the ecosystem is not as extensive as D3.js.

D3.js vs WebGL

Overview

D3.js vs WebGL: What are the differences?