What this book covers

Chapter 1, Gather Your Cartographer's Toolbox, covers the tools you need to install to build maps effectively with D3. We will cover the instructions to add NodeJS, npm, and TopoJSON to your system. This is needed in order to quickly bootstrap a local web server and to have the ability to manipulate map data.

Chapter 2, Creating Images from Simple Text, describes the basics of creating multiple shapes and designs with Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG).

Chapter 3, Producing Graphics from Data – the Foundations of D3, will deep dive into the main library of this book, D3.js. Concepts such as enter, update, and exit will be explained in detail with the use of some clever experiments and examples.

Chapter 4, Creating a Map, takes you through every step required to build a map with D3. Asynchronous loading of data, bounding box and projection creation, and TopoJSON element modification and data binding will be the bread and butter of this chapter.

Chapter 5, Click-click Boom! Applying Interactivity to Your Map, covers hover, panning, zooming, and their equivalent in touch events. Also, we'll dive into some nifty 3D projections, and a la par, we will learn transitions via experimentation.

Chapter 6, Finding and Working with Geographic Data, will take you through the process of acquiring data and optimizing it to your needs. This chapter covers one of the most important aspects of map visualization in detail via the use of TopoJSON.

Chapter 7, Testing, explains how to structure your codebase in order to have reusable chart components that are easily unit tested and primed for reuse in future projects.