Scale and Center D3-Graphviz Graph

Question

What is the best way to scale and center a graph using d3-graphviz? I was hopeful that I could use scale(0.5) but this leaves the resulting graph uncentered.

I could probably go in with an .attributer() and manually adjust the <svg> and <g> elements to get what I'm looking for, but I figured there was probably a better way?

d3.select("#graph")
  .graphviz()
    .width(300)
    .height(300)
    .fit(true)
    .scale(.5)
    .renderDot('digraph {a -> b}');

<script src="//d3js.org/d3.v5.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/@hpcc-js/wasm@0.3.11/dist/index.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/d3-graphviz@3.0.5/build/d3-graphviz.js"></script>
  
<div id="graph" style="width: 300px; height: 300px; border: 1px solid black"></div>

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 02 '21 at 20:49

There's no simple built-in way, but you can achieve almost anything with the attributer like so:

const px2pt = 3 / 4;

function attributer(datum, index, nodes) {
    var selection = d3.select(this);
    if (datum.tag == "svg") {
        var width = datum.attributes.width;
        var height = datum.attributes.height;
        w = datum.attributes.viewBox.split(" ")[2];
        h = datum.attributes.viewBox.split(" ")[3];
        var x = (width * px2pt - w / 2) / 2;
        var y = (height * px2pt - h / 2) / 2;
        selection
            .attr("width", width)
            .attr("height", height)
            .attr("viewBox", -x + " " + -y + " " + (width * px2pt) + " " + (height * px2pt));
        datum.attributes.width = width;
        datum.attributes.height = height;
        datum.attributes.viewBox = -x + " " + -y + " " + (width * px2pt) + " " + (height * px2pt);
    }
}

d3.select("#graph").graphviz()
    .width(300)
    .height(300)
    .fit(true)
    .scale(.5)
    .attributer(attributer)
    .renderDot('digraph  {a -> b}');

<script src="//d3js.org/d3.v5.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/@hpcc-js/wasm@0.3.11/dist/index.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/d3-graphviz@3.0.5/build/d3-graphviz.js"></script>
  
<div id="graph" style="width: 300px; height: 300px; border: 1px solid black"></div>

An unfortunate side-effect is that this breaks `.fit()` on large graphs. As an example, you can simply extend the graph to be `'digraph {a -> b -> c ->d -> e}'` — tgordon18, Jun 03 '21 at 11:51
I guess you have to dive into the details of SVG viewports and make the attributer more clever. Actually, what `.fit()` and `.scale()` and to some extent also `.width()` and `.height()` do are to manipulate the viewBox attribute so it might be easier to skip them and do everything in the attributer. — magjac, Jun 03 '21 at 20:26

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 10 '21 at 12:18

Based on magjac's comment, I skipped .fit(), .scale(), .width(), and .height() and did it all in the attributer. This allows the solution to work even for larger graphs.

A few things to note:

Setting the height and width of the <svg> to 100% allows us to skip .width() and .height() and have the <svg> fill its container div.
Introduced a scale variable that can be set (0-1) to determine the scale of the graph
Added comments to help with anyone who finds their way here

Thank you magjac for this awesome library!

const scale = 0.8;

function attributer(datum, index, nodes) {
    var selection = d3.select(this);
    if (datum.tag == "svg") {
        datum.attributes = {
            ...datum.attributes,
            width: '100%',
            height: '100%',
        };
        // svg is constructed by hpcc-js/wasm, which uses pt instead of px, so need to convert
        const px2pt = 3 / 4;

        // get graph dimensions in px. These can be grabbed from the viewBox of the svg
        // that hpcc-js/wasm generates
        const graphWidth = datum.attributes.viewBox.split(' ')[2] / px2pt;
        const graphHeight = datum.attributes.viewBox.split(' ')[3] / px2pt;

        // new viewBox width and height
        const w = graphWidth / scale;
        const h = graphHeight / scale;

        // new viewBox origin to keep the graph centered
        const x = -(w - graphWidth) / 2;
        const y = -(h - graphHeight) / 2;

        const viewBox = `${x * px2pt} ${y * px2pt} ${w * px2pt} ${h * px2pt}`;
        selection.attr('viewBox', viewBox);
        datum.attributes.viewBox = viewBox;
    }
}

d3.select("#graph").graphviz()
    .attributer(attributer)
    .renderDot('digraph  {a -> b -> c ->d -> e}');

<script src="//d3js.org/d3.v5.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/@hpcc-js/wasm@0.3.11/dist/index.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/d3-graphviz@3.0.5/build/d3-graphviz.js"></script>
  
<div id="graph" style="width: 300px; height: 300px; border: 1px solid black"></div>

Markus Weninger · Answer 3 · 2022-09-16T12:16:28.953

We use the zoom behavior to do this.

Basically, what we do is that we wait for the graph to change (.on('transitionEnd')) and then recenter the graph and set the zoom level to 1.

For this, we grab our graph's SVG element and read its viewBox property. This property is close to the size of our graph.

Then, we get the zoom behavior of our graph (the same that is used for zooming and panning with the mouse) and use its transform function.

The transform function can be used to set the zoom level as well as the translation, i.e., the panning of our graph, by passing a transform object.

d3.zoomIdentity gives us a new transform object with scale = 1, x = 0, y = 0, and by calling translate on it we can specify an x and y value to translate to. By default, d3-graphviz has on a plain graph, according to my small-scale empirical study, an x-translate of 4 and a y-translate that corresponds to the viewbox height - 4.

This leads to the following code (which also uses a transition to make the zoom transform smooth):

// you can also use 'renderEnd' if you do not use animations
graphVisualization.on('transitionEnd', () => {
      // Some zoom examples: https://observablehq.com/@d3/programmatic-zoom

      const svg = d3.select('#graph-wrapper svg')
      const viewBox = svg.attr('viewBox').split(' ')
      // const graphWidth = +viewBox[2]
      const graphHeight = +viewBox[3]

      const transform = graphVisualization.zoomBehavior()?.transform

      // Define scale and translate
      // Resetting zoom to 1
      // +4 and -4 are used since they seem to be the default d3-graphviz offsets
      svg.transition('translateTransition').call(transform, d3.zoomIdentity.translate(4, graphHeight - 4))
    })

Scale and Center D3-Graphviz Graph

3 Answers3