How can I draw an autoscaling D3.js graph that plots a mathematical function? - d3.js

Question

I have a working jsfiddle that I made using JSXGraph, a graphing toolkit for mathematical functions. I'd like to port it to D3.js for personal edification, but I'm having a hard time getting started.
The jsfiddle graphs the value of -ke(-x/T) + k, where x is an independent variable and the values of k and t come from sliders.
board.create('functiongraph',
[
// y = -k * e(-x/t) + k
function(x) { return -k.Value()*Math.exp(-x/t.Value()) + k.Value(); },
0
]
);
The three things I'm most stumped on:
Actually drawing the graph and its axes - it's not clear to me which of the many parts of the D3 API I should be using, or what level of abstraction I should be operating at.
Re-rendering the graph when a slider is changed, and making the graph aware of the value of the sliders.
Zooming out the graph so that the asymptote defined by y = k is always visible and not within the top 15% of the graph. I do this now with:
function getAestheticBoundingBox() {
var kMag = k.Value();
var tMag = t.Value();
var safeMinimum = 10;
var limit = Math.max(safeMinimum, 1.15 * Math.max(k.Value(), t.Value()));
return [0, Math.ceil(limit), Math.ceil(limit), 0];
}
What's the right way for me to tackle this problem?

Answer 1

I threw this example together really quick, so don't ding me on the code quality. But it should give you a good starting point for how you'd do something like this in d3. I implemented everything in straight d3, even the sliders.
As #LarKotthoff says, the key is that you have to loop your function and build your data:
// define your function
var func = function(x) {
return -sliders.k() * Math.exp(-x / sliders.t()) + sliders.k();
},
// your step for looping function
step = 0.01;
drawPlot();
function drawPlot() {
// avoid first callback before both sliders are created
if (!sliders.k ||
!sliders.t) return;
// set your limits
var kMag = sliders.k();
var tMag = sliders.t();
var safeMinimum = 10;
var limit = Math.max(safeMinimum, 1.15 * Math.max(kMag, tMag));
// generate your data
var data = [];
for (var i = 0; i < limit; i += step) {
data.push({
x: i,
y: func(i)
})
}
// set our axis limits
y.domain(
[0, Math.ceil(limit)]
);
x.domain(
[0, Math.ceil(limit)]
);
// redraw axis
svg.selectAll("g.y.axis").call(yAxis);
svg.selectAll("g.x.axis").call(xAxis);
// redraw line
svg.select('.myLine')
.attr('d', lineFunc(data))
}