Learn how to create interactive HTML5 charts and graphs with canvas, JavaScript, and open source tools

Overview

Build interactive visualizations of data from scratch with integrated animations and events
Draw with canvas and other html5 elements that improve your ability to draw directly in the browser
Work and improve existing 3rd party charting solutions such as Google Maps

In Detail

The HTML5 canvas tag makes creating any plot shape easy, all you have to do then is fill it with exciting visualizations written in JavaScript or using other visualization tools.

"HTML5 Graphing and Data Visualization Cookbook" is the perfect break into the world of Canvas, charts, and graphs in HTML5 and JavaScript. In this book we will go through a journey of getting to know the technology by creating and planning data-driven visualizations. This cookbook is organized in a linear, progressive way so it can be read from start to finish, as well as be used as a resource for specific tasks.

This book travels through the steps involved in creating a fully interactive and animated visualization in HTML5 and JavaScript. You will start from very simple "hello world" samples and quickly dive deeper into the world of graphs and charts in HTML5. Followed by learning how canvas works and carrying out a group of tasks geared at taking what we learned and implementing it in a variety of chart types. With each chapter the content becomes more complex and our creations become more engaging and interactive.

Our goal is that by the end of this book you will have a strong foundation; knowing when to create a chart on your own from scratch and when it would be a good idea to depend on other APIs.

We finish our book in our last two chapters exploring Google maps and integrating everything we learnt into a full project.

What you will learn from this book

Creating graphics in Canvas 2D and draw complex shapes
Building most of the common charts through step-by-step recipes
Adding interactivity to canvas elements and create your own JavaScript animation engine
Discovering many fantastic charting solutions and learn how to deal with their capabilities and how to change them as well
Learning how to work with Google maps , Google Charts, and Google Docs API
Integrating your data into live data, xml driven data, objects, and strings

Approach

This cookbook is organized in a linear, progressive way allowing it to be read from start to finish, as well as to be used as a useful resource for specific tasks.

The HTML5 examples and recipes will have you making dynamic, interactive, and animated charts and graphs in no time.

Who this book is written for

You don't need to have a background in HTML5 or Canvas but you do need to have a basic understanding of how HTML works and know how to code in any language (preferably in JavaScript). In this book we will not explain how to learn to code but how to create projects and how to plan and execute them in the process.