Comparison - VR-Viz, BabiaXR, D3.js
By Jakobi Haskell
Introduction
This page compares three JS VR-Compatible Data-Viz Libraries: VR-Viz, BabiaXR, and D3.js.
D3, or Data-Driven-Documents, is a javascript library that allows manipulation of elements (HTML, SVG, Canvas) on the webpage to more easily create data visualizations. It is very versatile, since it can declaratively manipulate any part of the DOM, allowing it to be integrated with new technologies like A-Frame.
VR-Viz is a set of a-frame react components for 3D data visualization. It supports basic visualization types, and also claims to support more advanced ones, including 3D model rendering, point clouds, and geo maps, but only point clouds have been successfully visualized.
BabiaXR is also a set of A-frame components for 3D data visualization. They provide basic visualization types such as bar, pie, and network charts.
Both VR-Viz and BabiaXR are A-Frame components, meaning that they are libraries built on top of A-Frame specifically for VR data visualization. VR-Viz is written with react, D3, and A-frame. The use of react with A-frame causes poor performance, and it can be difficult to integrate an existing A-frame project with react.
D3 (Data Driven Documents) is a library for manipulating datasets with the purpose of interactive data visualization. It is often compared to jQuery, because like jQuery it makes it easier to manipulate datasets declaratively, with the difference of being made for made for data visualization. While D3 is more versatile than VR-Viz and BabiaXR, it requires more code to use with VR than VR-Viz or BabiaXR.
Vr-Viz vs BabiaXR vs D3
Summary of key differences
1. D3 is the backbone on which many data visualization libraries built on top of, it is most versatile and universal.
2. BabiaXR supports very basic data visualizaton, only supports json files
3. VR-Viz is a well-rounded library for data visualization, providing many different types of visualizations and supporting a variety of file types.
Takeaways
Overall, there are not many data-viz libraries made for A-Frame, and the ones that do exist do not have the same level of depth as VR-native software. If you are looking for the easiest way to setup, then use VR-Viz, but if you are looking for more flexibility and are okay with spending more time setting everything up, then use D3 in combination with A-frame.