Question

Currently in d3 if you have a geoJSON object that you are going to draw you have to scale it and translate it in order to get it to the size that one wants and translate it in order to center it. This is a very tedious task of trial and error, and I was wondering if anyone knew a better way to obtain these values?

So for instance if I have this code

var path, vis, xy;
xy = d3.geo.mercator().scale(8500).translate([0, -1200]);

path = d3.geo.path().projection(xy);

vis = d3.select("#vis").append("svg:svg").attr("width", 960).attr("height", 600);

d3.json("../../data/ireland2.geojson", function(json) {
  return vis.append("svg:g")
    .attr("class", "tracts")
    .selectAll("path")
    .data(json.features).enter()
    .append("svg:path")
    .attr("d", path)
    .attr("fill", "#85C3C0")
    .attr("stroke", "#222");
});

How the hell do I obtain .scale(8500) and .translate([0, -1200]) without going little by little?

Answer 1

The following seems to do approximately what you want. The scaling seems to be ok. When applying it to my map there is a small offset. This small offset is probably caused because I use the translate command to center the map, while I should probably use the center command.

1. Create a projection and d3.geo.path
2. Calculate the bounds of the current projection
3. Use these bounds to calculate the scale and translation
4. Recreate the projection

In code:

  var width  = 300;
  var height = 400;

  var vis = d3.select("#vis").append("svg")
      .attr("width", width).attr("height", height)

  d3.json("nld.json", function(json) {
      // create a first guess for the projection
      var center = d3.geo.centroid(json)
      var scale  = 150;
      var offset = [width/2, height/2];
      var projection = d3.geo.mercator().scale(scale).center(center)
          .translate(offset);

      // create the path
      var path = d3.geo.path().projection(projection);

      // using the path determine the bounds of the current map and use 
      // these to determine better values for the scale and translation
      var bounds  = path.bounds(json);
      var hscale  = scale*width  / (bounds[1][0] - bounds[0][0]);
      var vscale  = scale*height / (bounds[1][1] - bounds[0][1]);
      var scale   = (hscale < vscale) ? hscale : vscale;
      var offset  = [width - (bounds[0][0] + bounds[1][0])/2,
                        height - (bounds[0][1] + bounds[1][1])/2];

      // new projection
      projection = d3.geo.mercator().center(center)
        .scale(scale).translate(offset);
      path = path.projection(projection);

      // add a rectangle to see the bound of the svg
      vis.append("rect").attr('width', width).attr('height', height)
        .style('stroke', 'black').style('fill', 'none');

      vis.selectAll("path").data(json.features).enter().append("path")
        .attr("d", path)
        .style("fill", "red")
        .style("stroke-width", "1")
        .style("stroke", "black")
    });