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D3.js VS The Book of Shaders

Compare D3.js VS The Book of Shaders and see what are their differences

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D3.js logo D3.js

D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. D3 helps you bring data to life using HTML, SVG, and CSS.

The Book of Shaders logo The Book of Shaders

Extensive guide through fragment shaders with live coding examples
  • D3.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-11

D3 allows you to bind arbitrary data to a Document Object Model (DOM), and then apply data-driven transformations to the document. For example, you can use D3 to generate an HTML table from an array of numbers. Or, use the same data to create an interactive SVG bar chart with smooth transitions and interaction.

D3 is not a monolithic framework that seeks to provide every conceivable feature. Instead, D3 solves the crux of the problem: efficient manipulation of documents based on data. This avoids proprietary representation and affords extraordinary flexibility, exposing the full capabilities of web standards such as HTML, SVG, and CSS. With minimal overhead, D3 is extremely fast, supporting large datasets and dynamic behaviors for interaction and animation. D3’s functional style allows code reuse through a diverse collection of official and community-developed modules.

  • The Book of Shaders Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-05

D3.js features and specs

  • Powerful Visualization
    D3.js allows for the creation of highly customized and interactive data visualizations, harnessing the full power of web standards like SVG, Canvas, and HTML.
  • Data Binding
    It offers robust support for data-driven transformations and binding, enabling intuitive connections between data sets and DOM elements.
  • Community and Ecosystem
    A large and active community contributes to tutorials, plugins, and tools, which can significantly simplify the development process.
  • Flexibility
    D3.js is highly flexible, providing low-level manipulation capabilities without being tied to any specific chart types or patterns.
  • Performance
    It is highly optimized for performance, allowing for efficient rendering of complex visualizations even with large data sets.

Possible disadvantages of D3.js

  • Steep Learning Curve
    D3.js has a steep learning curve due to its low-level nature and requires a solid understanding of JavaScript, DOM manipulation, and data concepts.
  • Complexity
    Creating complex visualizations can be time-consuming and require a significant amount of custom code, making it less approachable for quick, simple tasks.
  • Browser Compatibility
    Although widely supported, some D3.js features may have inconsistent behavior across different browsers, requiring additional testing and debugging.
  • Documentation
    While extensive, D3.js documentation can be challenging for beginners to navigate and understand, causing misunderstandings and slower development times.
  • Dependency Management
    The library itself is modular, but managing dependencies and integrating D3.js with other JavaScript frameworks or libraries can sometimes be problematic.

The Book of Shaders features and specs

  • Comprehensive Introduction
    The Book of Shaders provides a thorough introduction to the fundamentals of shader programming, making it accessible for beginners.
  • Interactive Examples
    It includes interactive examples that allow readers to experiment with code snippets in real-time, enhancing the learning experience through hands-on practice.
  • Clear Explanations
    The book offers clear and concise explanations of complex concepts, helping readers to grasp tricky topics more easily.
  • Open Source
    Being an open-source resource, it is freely available to anyone interested, promoting wider accessibility and learning opportunities.
  • Gradual Progression
    The content is structured to gradually increase in complexity, enabling learners to build their knowledge step-by-step.

Possible disadvantages of The Book of Shaders

  • Advanced Topics
    It may not cover some advanced topics in-depth, which could require readers to seek additional resources for more complex shader programming concepts.
  • Online Format Limitations
    As an online resource, it may not be as convenient for some users who prefer physical books or offline materials for study.
  • Limited Context
    The book focuses specifically on GLSL shaders and may not provide broader context or applications in different graphics programming environments.
  • Assumes Basic Graphics Knowledge
    Some sections might assume a basic understanding of graphics programming, which could be challenging for absolute beginners without any prior exposure.

Analysis of D3.js

Overall verdict

  • Yes, D3.js is a highly regarded library for data visualization in the web development community.

Why this product is good

  • Flexibility: D3.js provides incredible flexibility in creating complex and interactive visualizations with web standards (SVG, HTML, and CSS).
  • Customization: It allows for high levels of customization, which lets developers create unique and detailed visualizations tailored to their specific needs.
  • Community and Ecosystem: D3.js has a large, active community and a rich ecosystem of plugins and extensions conducive to learning and integration.
  • Data Binding: Offers powerful ways to manipulate documents based on data; the data-driven approach simplifies dynamic interaction creation.
  • Performance: Efficiently manipulates DOM elements and performs well with large datasets if used correctly.

Recommended for

  • Data Scientists and Analysts looking to create custom, interactive visualizations.
  • Web Developers who need to incorporate complex data visualizations into applications.
  • Educators and Researchers presenting data in an engaging way.
  • Anyone needing to build bespoke visualizations that are not possible with off-the-shelf solutions.

Analysis of The Book of Shaders

Overall verdict

  • Yes, The Book of Shaders is highly regarded as a valuable resource for learning about shaders.

Why this product is good

  • The Book of Shaders is praised for its clear and concise explanations, making complex topics accessible for beginners. It provides interactive examples and exercises that help reinforce concepts and encourage experimentation. This structured approach facilitates both learning the fundamentals and exploring advanced shader techniques. Moreover, its online format allows for regular updates and community-contributed content.

Recommended for

    This resource is ideal for graphics programmers, game developers, digital artists, and anyone interested in real-time rendering and shader programming. Beginners and intermediate learners will find it particularly beneficial due to its approachable format and interactive elements.

D3.js videos

+ Add

Data Visualization with D3.js - Full Tutorial Course

More videos:

  • Review - Let's learn D3.js - D3 for data visualization (full course)

The Book of Shaders videos

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Category Popularity

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D3.js

The Book of Shaders

Charting Libraries
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Charting Libraries
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3D
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3D
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Data Visualization
100 100%
Data Visualization
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VJ
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VJ
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User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare D3.js and The Book of Shaders

D3.js Reviews

6 JavaScript Charting Libraries for Powerful Data Visualizations in 2023
Depending on your requirements, the best JavaScript library is D3.js, as it’s by far the most customizable. However, it’s also really complex and difficult to master. Plus, it’s not as compatible with TypeScript as it is with JavaScript, which can be off-putting for some developers. If you’d prefer a less complex library that you can use with TypeScript, ECharts, and...
Source: embeddable.com
15 JavaScript Libraries for Creating Beautiful Charts
When we think of charting today, D3.js is the first name that comes up. Being an open source project, D3.js definitely brings many powerful features that were missing in most of the existing libraries. Features like dynamic properties, Enter and Exit, powerful transitions, and syntax familiarity with jQuery make it one the best JavaScript libraries for charting. Charts in...
Source: www.sitepoint.com
Top 20 Javascript Libraries
D3 stands for Data-Driven Documents. With D3, you can apply data-driven transformations to DOM objects. The keyword with D3 is ‘data-driven,’ which means documents are manipulated depending on the data received. Data can be received in any format and bound with DOM objects. D3 is very fast and supports dynamic behavior for animation and interactions. There are plenty of...
Source: hackr.io
20+ JavaScript libraries to draw your own diagrams (2022 edition)
D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. Right now, I would say is the most popular library of its kind.
Source: modeling-languages.com
15 data science tools to consider using in 2021
Another open source tool, D3.js is a JavaScript library for creating custom data visualizations in a web browser. Commonly known as D3, which stands for Data-Driven Documents, it uses web standards, such as HTML, Scalable Vector Graphics and CSS, instead of its own graphical vocabulary. D3's developers describe it as a dynamic and flexible tool that requires a minimum amount...
Source: searchbusinessanalytics.techtarget.com

The Book of Shaders Reviews

We have no reviews of The Book of Shaders yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

D3.js might be a bit more popular than The Book of Shaders. We know about 167 links to it since March 2021 and only 146 links to The Book of Shaders. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

D3.js mentions (167)

  • IO Devices and Latency
    Do you mean something for data visualization, or tricks condensing large data sets with cursors? https://d3js.org/ Best of luck =3. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • 2024 Nuxt3 Annual Ecosystem Summary🚀
    Document address: D3.js Official Document. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • 100+ Must-Have Web Development Resources
    D3.js: One of the most popular JavaScript visualization libraries. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • What are npm Peer Dependencies and how to use them?
    A Dependency is an npm package that our code depends on in order to be able to run. Some popular packages that can be added as dependencies are lodash, D3, and chartjs. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Introducing RacingBars 📊
    RacingBars is an open-source, light-weight (~45kb gzipped), easy-to-use, and feature-rich javascript library for bar chart race, based on D3.js. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
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The Book of Shaders mentions (146)

  • WebGL Water
    I like https://thebookofshaders.com/ . It’s unfinished and I don’t think it’s been updated in years, but what’s there is pretty good. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 month ago
  • Shadertoys Ported to Rust GPU
    FYI apparently the www.* link doesn't actually have the menu for some reason? It's just the world graphic and a blank menu bar. You need to visit http://thebookofshaders.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • Dissecting "Tiny Clouds" shadertoy (2017)
    Yes, but you can learn it! 1. Get inspired, get motivated. Shaders like these are breathtaking: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/l3cfW4 2. Watch "Learn to paint with mathematics" to see a simple shader being built gradually: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ifChJ0nJfM 3. Work through https://thebookofshaders.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Tiny Glade 'built' its way to >600k sold in a month
    The Book of Shaders (https://thebookofshaders.com/) perhaps? It's about shaders rather than geometry but it felt like a good introduction to generating things with programmatically. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Breaking Down the WebGL Triangle Setup
    In the code above we are creating both a vertexShader and fragmentShader constant and storing the shader code in them. The Book of Shaders is a great resource for learning how to write GLSL code. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing D3.js and The Book of Shaders, you can also consider the following products

Chart.js - Easy, object oriented client side graphs for designers and developers.

Shadertoy - Build shaders, share them, and learn from the best community.

Plotly - Low-Code Data Apps

SHADERed - Lightweight, full-featured desktop tool for creating and testing HLSL and GLSL shaders

Highcharts - A charting library written in pure JavaScript, offering an easy way of adding interactive charts to your web site or web application

GLSL Sandbox - An online GSGL Shader Gallery and live development tool.

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