
Scale up your D3 graph visualisation – WebGL & Canvas with PIXI.js
05 Sep 2019 by Jan Zak · 3 min read Graph Visualization Intermediate
Do you use D3 for data visualisation and either you are considering, or already using it also for graph visualisation? Keep in mind that D3 uses SVG for rendering. While it is the easiest to work with API for drawing 2D graphics on the Web, its downside is that the browser keeps the entire DOM tree of vector elements in memory, even for elements that are effectively invisible. You might hit a performance drop with complex graphics, specifically for graph visualisation when you try drawing graphs larger than ~1000 nodes, or even less with complex SVG effects.