Draw a D3 circle with gradient colours

Question

How to draw a circle with gradient color? Say, a gradient from yellow to blue.

Normally, to create a circle in yellow we can use the following code:

var          


        

Answer 1

You have to define the gradient in the SVG first, and then fill the circle with an SVG link to the gradient element.

// Define the gradient
var gradient = svg.append("svg:defs")
    .append("svg:linearGradient")
    .attr("id", "gradient")
    .attr("x1", "0%")
    .attr("y1", "0%")
    .attr("x2", "100%")
    .attr("y2", "100%")
    .attr("spreadMethod", "pad");

// Define the gradient colors
gradient.append("svg:stop")
    .attr("offset", "0%")
    .attr("stop-color", "#a00000")
    .attr("stop-opacity", 1);

gradient.append("svg:stop")
    .attr("offset", "100%")
    .attr("stop-color", "#aaaa00")
    .attr("stop-opacity", 1);

// Fill the circle with the gradient
var circle = svg.append('circle')
    .attr('cx', width / 2)
    .attr('cy', height / 2)
    .attr('r', height / 3)
    .attr('fill', 'url(#gradient)');

A jsFiddle with the complete example. More details on how to define SVG gradients in the MDN Tutorial. The resulting image:

Answer 2

Take a look at this code snippet:

var width = 500,
    height = 500,
    padding = 1.5, // separation between same-color nodes
    clusterPadding = 6, // separation between different-color nodes
    maxRadius = 12;

var n = 200, // total number of nodes
    m = 10; // number of distinct clusters

var color = d3.scale.category10()
    .domain(d3.range(m));

// The largest node for each cluster.
var clusters = new Array(m);

var nodes = d3.range(n).map(function() {
    var i = Math.floor(Math.random() * m),
        r = Math.sqrt((i + 1) / m * -Math.log(Math.random())) * maxRadius,
        d = {cluster: i, radius: r};
    if (!clusters[i] || (r > clusters[i].radius)) clusters[i] = d;
    return d;
});

// Use the pack layout to initialize node positions.
d3.layout.pack()
    .sort(null)
    .size([width, height])
    .children(function(d) { return d.values; })
    .value(function(d) { return d.radius * d.radius; })
    .nodes({values: d3.nest()
        .key(function(d) { return d.cluster; })
        .entries(nodes)
    });

var force = d3.layout.force()
    .nodes(nodes)
    .size([width, height])
    .gravity(.02)
    .charge(0)
    .on("tick", tick)
    .start();

var svg = d3.select("body").append("svg")
    .attr("width", width)
    .attr("height", height);

var grads = svg.append("defs").selectAll("radialGradient")
    .data(nodes)
   .enter()
    .append("radialGradient")
    .attr("gradientUnits", "objectBoundingBox")
    .attr("cx", 0)
    .attr("cy", 0)
    .attr("r", "100%")
    .attr("id", function(d, i) { return "grad" + i; });

grads.append("stop")
    .attr("offset", "0%")
    .style("stop-color", "white");

grads.append("stop")
    .attr("offset", "100%")
    .style("stop-color",  function(d) { return color(d.cluster); });

var node = svg.selectAll("circle")
    .data(nodes)
   .enter()
    .append("circle")
    .style("fill", function(d, i) {
        return "url(#grad" + i + ")";
    })
    // .style("fill", function(d) { return color(d.cluster); })
    .call(force.drag);

node.transition()
    .duration(750)
    .delay(function(d, i) { return i * 5; })
    .attrTween("r", function(d) {
      var i = d3.interpolate(0, d.radius);
      return function(t) { return d.radius = i(t); };
    });

function tick(e) {
    node
        .each(cluster(10 * e.alpha * e.alpha))
        .each(collide(.5))
        .attr("cx", function(d) { return d.x; })
        .attr("cy", function(d) { return d.y; });
}

// Move d to be adjacent to the cluster node.
function cluster(alpha) {
    return function(d) {
        var cluster = clusters[d.cluster];
        if (cluster === d) return;
        var x = d.x - cluster.x,
            y = d.y - cluster.y,
            l = Math.sqrt(x * x + y * y),
            r = d.radius + cluster.radius;
        if (l != r) {
            l = (l - r) / l * alpha;
            d.x -= x *= l;
            d.y -= y *= l;
            cluster.x += x;
            cluster.y += y;
        }
    };
}

// Resolves collisions between d and all other circles.
function collide(alpha) {
    var quadtree = d3.geom.quadtree(nodes);
    return function(d) {
        var r = d.radius + maxRadius + Math.max(padding, clusterPadding),
            nx1 = d.x - r,
            nx2 = d.x + r,
            ny1 = d.y - r,
            ny2 = d.y + r;
        quadtree.visit(function(quad, x1, y1, x2, y2) {
            if (quad.point && (quad.point !== d)) {
                var x = d.x - quad.point.x,
                    y = d.y - quad.point.y,
                    l = Math.sqrt(x * x + y * y),
                    r = d.radius + quad.point.radius +
                       (d.cluster === quad.point.cluster ? padding : clusterPadding);
                if (l < r) {
                    l = (l - r) / l * alpha;
                    d.x -= x *= l;
                    d.y -= y *= l;
                    quad.point.x += x;
                    quad.point.y += y;
                }
            }
            return x1 > nx2 || x2 < nx1 || y1 > ny2 || y2 < ny1;
        });
    };
}

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/d3/3.4.11/d3.min.js"></script>

It contains support for drawing SVG circles with gradient (and achieving a 3D look-and-feel effect by doing this) and is based on SVG radial gradients.

---

For each node, a gradient is defined:

var grads = svg.append("defs").selectAll("radialGradient")
    .data(nodes)
   .enter()
    .append("radialGradient")
    .attr("gradientUnits", "objectBoundingBox")
    .attr("cx", 0)
    .attr("cy", 0)
    .attr("r", "100%")
    .attr("id", function(d, i) { return "grad" + i; });

grads.append("stop")
    .attr("offset", "0%")
    .style("stop-color", "white");

grads.append("stop")
    .attr("offset", "100%")
    .style("stop-color",  function(d) { return color(d.cluster); });

Then, instead of line:

.style("fill", function(d) { return color(d.cluster); })

this line is added in the code that creates circles:

.attr("fill", function(d, i) {
    return "url(#grad" + i + ")";
})

This produces this effect:(animated gif that I used has some limitations for number of colors, so gradients are not smooth as in real example)