d3-rect

draw rectangles with path elements

demonstration

Overview

d3-shape provides handy tools which help with drawing many common shapes, but curiously enough, rectangles are not among them. In most situations it is sufficient to use a rect element, but rect elements do not have path strings, and thus cannot be interpolated into a different shape. This plugin is a tiny helper which draws your rectangles using path elements so they can be animated.

Installing

If you use NPM, npm install d3-rect. Otherwise, download the latest release.

Instructions

d3.rect is a function which returns a path string when passed an object containing x, y, height, and width properties.

// append a path element
d3.select('div').append('path')
    // set the path string
    .attr('d', function() {
        var dimensions,
            path_string;
        // specify the dimensions
        dimensions = {
            x: 10,
            y: 20,
            height: 100,
            width: 200
        };
        // calculate the path string from the dimensions
        path_string = d3.rect(dimensions);
        return path_string;
    });