Comment by Agent-Cooper

D3 provides a bunch of utilities for building visualizations beyond DOM manipulation. Here are some of the modules I use regularly:

- d3-array: data processing

- d3-scale: mapping from data attributes to visualization encodings

- d3-scale-chromatic: color schemes

- d3-shape: defining the shapes of paths, such for a line chart

- d3-color: manipulating colors

- d3-time: manipulating dates

- d3-format: formatting numbers

- d3-time-format: formatting dates

These modules are useful even if you don't use D3 to manage the DOM. For example, you can use these utilities to help calculate all of the attributes for your SVG elements, but then use Svelte/React/Solid/Vue to create and render the SVG.

If I'm building a visualization inside of a web app, I tend to prefer this approach since it leaves the framework in control of the DOM throughout the whole app. It feels simpler, especially if I want interactions in the visualization to modify the app's state.