Q:

How do I create a distance scale ring in SVG in openlayers 3?

I want to draw an SVG distance ring on one of the layers in openlayers 3, centered around the center of the screen.Draw each ring in screen coordinates. The distance between each ring represents the distance on the map.
The distance between each ring varies as the map scales.

A:

It's probably best done using OpenLayers own styling capabilites.  For example, adding a dummy layer with feature covering the whole extent which can be styled as rings around the map center.  Note that depending on the map projection the ring sizes (and even shape) may change depending on location as the true map scale changes, such as these 50km, 200km, 500km and 1000km if moved from Greenland to Africa. 

var map = new ol.Map({
    layers: [
        new ol.layer.Tile({
            source: new ol.source.OSM(),
        })
    ],
    target: 'map',
    view: new ol.View()
});

var proj = map.getView().getProjection();
map.getView().setCenter(ol.proj.transform([-38, 75.9], 'EPSG:4326', proj));
map.getView().setZoom(2);

map.addLayer(
    new ol.layer.Vector({
        source: new ol.source.Vector({
            features: [ new ol.Feature(new ol.geom.Polygon.fromExtent(proj.getExtent())) ]
        }),
        style: function(feature) {
            var center = ol.proj.transform(map.getView().getCenter(), proj, 'EPSG:4326');
            var sphere = new ol.Sphere(6371008.8);
            return [
                new ol.style.Style({
                    geometry: ol.geom.Polygon.circular(sphere, center, 1000000, 128).transform('EPSG:4326', proj),
                    stroke: new ol.style.Stroke({
                        color: 'green',
                        width: 4
                    })
                }),
                new ol.style.Style({
                    geometry: ol.geom.Polygon.circular(sphere, center, 500000, 128).transform('EPSG:4326', proj),
                    stroke: new ol.style.Stroke({
                        color: 'blue',
                        width: 4
                    })
                }),
                new ol.style.Style({
                    geometry: ol.geom.Polygon.circular(sphere, center, 200000, 128).transform('EPSG:4326', proj),
                    stroke: new ol.style.Stroke({
                        color: 'red',
                        width: 4
                    })
                }),
                new ol.style.Style({
                    geometry: ol.geom.Polygon.circular(sphere, center, 50000, 128).transform('EPSG:4326', proj),
                    stroke: new ol.style.Stroke({
                        color: 'black',
                        width: 4
                    })
                 })
            ];
        }
    })
);
html,
body {
  height: 100%;
  width: 100%;
  padding: 0px;
  margin: 0px;
}

.map {
  height: 100%;
  width: 100%;
}
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/openlayers/3.4.0/ol.css" type="text/css">
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/openlayers/3.4.0/ol.js"></script>
<div id="map" class="map"></div>

