Chapter 7. Controlling Transitions and Animations

In the previous chapters, you learned how to generate different charts from server log data such as scatter charts, line charts, area charts, and so on. If we want to update the chart to display the most recent logs, we will simply have to redraw the whole chart. However, this will make it very difficult to see where and how the changes affected the visualization. In this chapter, we will take a close look at transitions and animations as a way to visualize and better understand the data changes.

First, we will start with an introduction to animations in D3.js that consist of timers and interpolations. This will give us a good notion to understand how D3.js processes animations under the hood.

In the second section, you will learn more about transitions, a special kind of animation that solely describe the change from one state to another. With previous knowledge, we will understand how timers and interpolations internally work for transitions...