Vision

Vision is a single-page data visualization project using Vanilla JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and the D3.js library.

This application displays data from the Marvel Cinematic Universe dating back to the first Iron Man film in 2008 to the latest Spider-Man: Far from Home in 2019. Information includes budget, worldwide gross, United States + Canada Gross, China Gross, and Japan Gross.

Background

Coming from a Film Production background, I can enjoy any movie. Growing up reading comics and spending countless hours studying up just about every hero and villain in the early 2010s, my love for Marvel comics grew and even more so, the Marvel Cinematic Universe films.

I created my own movies.json using information from IMDbPro. To allow easier scaling with D3, all the budget and gross data represent numbers in millions.

{
    "Title": "Captain America: The First Avenger",
    "Release Date": "July 22, 2011",
    "Rating": 80,
    "Budget": 140,
    "Opening Weekend": 65,
    "World Gross": 370,
    "US & Canada Gross": 177,
    "United Kingdom Gross": 15,
    "China Gross": 3,
    "Japan Gross": 3,
    "Germany Gross": 5
  },
  {
    "Title": "Marvel's The Avengers",
    "Release Date": "May 4, 2012",
    "Rating": 91,
    "Budget": 220,
    "Opening Weekend": 207,
    "World Gross": 1519,
    "US & Canada Gross": 623,
    "United Kingdom Gross": 81,
    "China Gross": 86,
    "Japan Gross": 33,
    "Germany Gross": 31
  },

Architecture

Technologies	Used
HTML	D3.js
CSS	Font Awesome
Intersection Observer API

Functionality & MVP

Visitors will be able to:

Enter the application through a modal.
Scroll smoothly through a assortment of charts and containers.
View timeline and release dates of MCU films on a table.
Interact with Navigation Icons on the right and be anchored to the specific film.

Initial Wireframe

D3.js

D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. D3 helped bring my application to life juxtaposed to HTML, CSS, and SVG. Through a process of .append(), .attr(), .enter() among other Selections, I was able to manipuilate the xAxis and yAxis of my application to create a smooth flow of rendering the appropriate bar chart. D3 made an efficient manipulation of documents based on data.

const createVision = (movieData, idx) => {
  let margin = { top: 10, right: 40, bottom: 25, left: 60 }
  let width = 700 - margin.left - margin.right
  let height = 450 - margin.top - margin.bottom
  let data = Object.values(movieData).slice(3)
  let numberOfColumns = 8

  let x_axisLength = width
  let targetSVG = 'slide-svg-' + idx
  let targetSlideRect = 'slide-svg-' + idx + '-rect'
  let xScale = d3.scaleLinear().domain([0, numberOfColumns]).range([20, width])
  let yScale = d3.scaleLinear().domain([10, 0]).range([25, 400])

  let svg = d3
    .select('#vision')
    .append('svg')
    .attr('class', `${targetSVG} hidden`)
    .attr('viewBox', `0 50 650 100`)
    .attr('preserveAspectRatio', 'xMinYMin meet')

  let xAxis = d3
    .axisBottom()
    .scale(xScale)
    .tickSize(0)
    .tickFormat(function (d) {
      return Object.keys(movieData).slice(3)[d]
    })

  let formatValue = d3.format('.1s')

  let yAxis = d3
    .axisLeft(yScale)
    .ticks(4)
    .tickFormat((tickCount) => {
      switch (tickCount) {
        case 10:
          return '1 billion'
          break
        case 0:
          return '1 million'
        default:
          return formatValue(tickCount) + '00 million'
      }
    })

Intersection Observer API

The Intersection Observer API provides a way to asynchronously observe changes in the intersection of a target element with an ancestor element or with a top-level document's viewport. With this API, I was able to create a reference to each container/slide my application adnd apply a anchor to successfully allow transitions of my graphs upon scrolling up or down on the page.

let options = {
  root: document.querySelector('#scrollArea'),
  rootMargin: '0px',
  threshold: 1.0
}

let observer = new IntersectionObserver(callback, options);