How can I get a time axis onto an object, using D3? - d3.js

Question

I'm very new to d3 and trying to learn by building a visualization.
My goal right now is to make a circle and color the circle based on some temporal data. I've made the circle, and want to add a timescale to it. The circle I have created fine using d3.arc() on an svg element. I have also created a time scale (seen below). My question is, how can I "attach" this time scale to the circle? I want to be able to say that at xyz point in time, my data holds this value, so now color the circle based on a color scale.
Or...am I going about this wrong?
var time = d3.scale.ordinal()
.domain(d3.extent(data, function(d) {
return d.date;
}))

Answer 1

I think you may need to use a quantitative scale instead of ordinal.
https://github.com/mbostock/d3/wiki/Ordinal-Scales says -
Ordinal scales have a discrete domain, such as a set of names or categories
and in your code, you use the "extent" of the date property, which only gives you 2 values - the earliest and most recent date in your data. That is a discrete domain, but a very limited one, and wouldn't represent your data very well. The scale will only output at most 2 values.
var now = Date.now();
var then = now - 1000;
var colors = d3.scale.ordinal()
.domain([then, now])
.range(['#ff0000','#0000ff']);
colors(then); // red
colors(now); // blue
colors(now - 500); // red... expecting violet
change 'ordinal' to 'linear' and leave the rest as is.
var now = Date.now();
var then = now - 1000;
var colors = d3.scale.linear()
.domain([then, now])
.range(['#ff0000','#0000ff']);
colors(then); // red
colors(now); // blue
colors(now - 500); // violet
The tricky part (at least for me) was remembering that the output of d3.scale.linear() (the 'colors' variable above) is a function. It can be called just like any other function.
var fakeData = d3.range(then, now, 10);
var svg = d3.select('body')
.append('svg')
.attr({ height: 500, width: 500 });
var circle = svg.append('circle')
.attr({ r: 100, cx: 250, cy: 250 });
function changeTime(time){
circle.attr('fill', colors(time));
}