Find/recenter arbitrary node in d3 force-directed layout

Question

I have a force-directed graph with a large number of nodes (thousands) - the volume of data makes any specific node difficult to locate in the graph. I would love to have a way to search for a specific node, and recenter the graph on it.

Is this something I could do by parsing force.nodes() for a specific data value and somehow recentering the graph on that node? Or is it more complicated than that?

Answer 1

Not too troublesome. Once you've identified the special node, re-run the layout with your own tick handler. In that tick handler, set the special node's x and y properties to keep it centered. The layout algorithm will then adjust all the other nodes accordingly.

For a slightly smoother user experience, you could incrementally move the node from it's starting position to the center within the tick handler.