How to draw a chess board in D3?

Question

I would like to draw a chess board in D3:

I would be satisfied with just being able to draw the initial game position (as above).

It may be the case that one does not need image files for king, queen, knight, etc. (there are 12 distinct pieces) since they are all part of Unicode as codepoints 2654-265F:

The Unicode characters appear in any modern browser:

♔ ♕ ♖ ♗ ♘ ♙

♚ ♛ ♜ ♝ ♞ ♟

Unicode chess symbols on Wikipedia: here

Python script to display chess board in a terminal using Unicode characters: here. Its result:

Any pointers or help would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

Here is the codepen of the solution.

CODE WALKTROUGH

Definition of enumerated type for all chess pieces:

var pieces = {
    NONE :          {name: "None",          code: " "}, 
    WHITE_KING :    {name: "White King",    code: "\u2654"}, 
    WHITE_QUEEN :   {name: "White Queen",   code: "\u2655"}, 
    WHITE_ROOK :    {name: "White Rook",    code: "\u2656"}, 
    WHITE_BISHOP :  {name: "White Bishop",  code: "\u2657"}, 
    WHITE_KNIGHT :  {name: "White Knight",  code: "\u2658"}, 
    WHITE_POWN :    {name: "White Pown",    code: "\u2659"}, 
    BLACK_KING :    {name: "Black King",    code: "\u265A"}, 
    BLACK_QUEEN :   {name: "Black Queen",   code: "\u265B"}, 
    BLACK_ROOK :    {name: "Black Rook",    code: "\u265C"}, 
    BLACK_BISHOP :  {name: "Black Bishop",  code: "\u265D"}, 
    BLACK_KNIGHT :  {name: "Black Knight",  code: "\u265E"}, 
    BLACK_POWN :    {name: "Black Pown",    code: "\u265F"}, 
};    

Board initialization:

    var board =[];

    for(var i = 0; i < boardDimension*boardDimension; i++) {
        board.push({
            x: i % boardDimension,
            y: Math.floor(i / boardDimension),
            piece: pieces.NONE
        });
    };

    board[0].piece = pieces.BLACK_ROOK
    board[1].piece = pieces.BLACK_KNIGHT
    board[2].piece = pieces.BLACK_BISHOP
    board[3].piece = pieces.BLACK_QUEEN
    board[4].piece = pieces.BLACK_KING
    board[5].piece = pieces.BLACK_BISHOP
    board[6].piece = pieces.BLACK_KNIGHT
    board[7].piece = pieces.BLACK_ROOK

    board[8].piece = pieces.BLACK_POWN
    board[9].piece = pieces.BLACK_POWN
    board[10].piece = pieces.BLACK_POWN
    board[11].piece = pieces.BLACK_POWN
    board[12].piece = pieces.BLACK_POWN
    board[13].piece = pieces.BLACK_POWN
    board[14].piece = pieces.BLACK_POWN
    board[15].piece = pieces.BLACK_POWN

    board[6*8 + 0].piece = pieces.WHITE_POWN
    board[6*8 + 1].piece = pieces.WHITE_POWN
    board[6*8 + 2].piece = pieces.WHITE_POWN
    board[6*8 + 3].piece = pieces.WHITE_POWN
    board[6*8 + 4].piece = pieces.WHITE_POWN
    board[6*8 + 5].piece = pieces.WHITE_POWN
    board[6*8 + 6].piece = pieces.WHITE_POWN
    board[6*8 + 7].piece = pieces.WHITE_POWN

    board[7*8 + 0].piece = pieces.WHITE_ROOK
    board[7*8 + 1].piece = pieces.WHITE_KNIGHT
    board[7*8 + 2].piece = pieces.WHITE_BISHOP
    board[7*8 + 3].piece = pieces.WHITE_QUEEN
    board[7*8 + 4].piece = pieces.WHITE_KING
    board[7*8 + 5].piece = pieces.WHITE_BISHOP
    board[7*8 + 6].piece = pieces.WHITE_KNIGHT
    board[7*8 + 7].piece = pieces.WHITE_ROOK

Drawing squares:

    svg.append("rect")
         .style("class", "fields")
         .style("class", "rects")
         .attr("x", function (d) {
             return d.x*fieldSize;
         })
         .attr("y", function (d) {
             return d.y*fieldSize;
         })
         .attr("width", fieldSize + "px")
         .attr("height", fieldSize + "px")
         .style("fill", function (d) {
             if ( ((d.x%2 == 0) && (d.y%2 == 0)) ||
                  ((d.x%2 == 1) && (d.y%2 == 1))    ) 
                 return "beige";
             else
                 return "tan";
         });

Drawing pieces, using Unicode characters:

    svg.append("text")
        .attr("x", function (d) {
            return d.x*fieldSize;
        })
        .attr("y", function (d) {
            return d.y*fieldSize;
        })
        .style("font-size", "40")
        .attr("text-anchor", "middle")
        .attr("dy", "35px")
        .attr("dx", "20px")
        .text(function (d) {
            return d.piece.code;
         })
        .append("title")
        .text(function(d) {
            return d.piece.name;
        });