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I hope the conference fits my schedule: http://svgopen.org/

Google hosts the SVG world conference Oct. 2-4, presenting an update on SVGWeb and about 60 presentations from others

Google hosts the SVG world conference Oct. 2-4, presenting an update on SVGWeb and about 60 presentations from others

Google is also forcing SVG into Internet Explorer through a JavaScript+Flash implementation.
Which will be one of the many interesting presentations at SVG Open 2009

If you do not like flash, There is a lot of nice SVG around. All of these examples work well under Firefox 3.0 or Opera 9. Perhaps also on other browsers. It took SVG a long time (spec is from around 2000), but it is seeing more adoption now.

BIG in the mobile world:
about a billion handsets can support it, many do out of the box these days. Services like MMS and Vodafone use it.

seriously used on the server-side:
Pictures sent to your browser, especially those from mapservers, could well be generated in SVG on the server only to be rasterized as a last step before sending to the browser.

graphics software:
"save as SVG" all over the place

browsers: support is gaining big, though even before often people were watching SVG without knowing, cause the Adobe plug-in came along with some Acrobat Reader versions.

etc.,etc.
get your perception more in line with reality

http://svg.org/ (community)
http://www.svgopen.org/ (world event)
http://svg.pagina.nl/ (links)

these services might not send you SVG, but:
-they might use it on the server and rasterize as a last step before sending it of to you
-there are services that do
-most modern mobile phones can do SVG, many even do out of the box (both MMS and Vodafone Live for example use it)

Check
http://www.svg.org/ (community)
http://www.svgopen.org/ (world gathering)
http://svg.pagina.nl/ (links)

I think these Adobe guys will raise the already exorbitant prices* of their new Adobe Freehand/Illustrator/Whateverthefuckitisnamednow and make Flash even more of a tycoon-only market. That will make my personal favorite format, which shall SVG remain nameless, even more visible via Inkscape, Sodipodi, OpenOffice.org, and even MS Office's Visio and the like.

Thank you, Adobe and Macromedia, for enlightening us with thy holy matrimony.

*as if people actually purchase *cough*othermeans*cough* Adobe software

We've already done a bit of work on this, although not in any open projects yet. We do however have a small testbed for integrating and designing datasets in a SVG-client before going through a peer review process by others that have data in the same area.

Our white paper on the architecture may be seen at SVG Open from the 2003 proceedings. A small amount of information (including a live demo -- it does however require that someone accepts the data submitted, so don't expect to see anything in the gateway at once) is available here.

The idea is however a good one and is absolutely doable. The problem is that you'll probably get rather large datasets for the most used paths, while the roads noone travels frequently will remain unmapped (and those are really the roads that you _do_ need a map for)..

1. 
   
   always the first place one should start
   
   Samples#1
   
   samples#2
   
   examples#3 (part of a SVG webring)
   
   examples#4 (it also answers the question. Who uses this?)
   
   ditto#2
   
   Adobe plugin (shoots down the "hasn't been updated in years" argument)
   
   Too imature for you?
   
   Oh yeah! Immature, and it has a browser plugin too
   
   

SVG is similar in scope to Flash, but it is a W3 recommendation (i.e. a standard) and uses an open format.

SVG is actually much broader in scope than Flash, PDF, or other proprietary formats, as aptly pointed out by Paul Presod at SVG Open 2003.

Furthermore, the XML project of the Apache Software Founcation is hard at work on Batik, a Java-based toolkit for applications or applets that want to use images in the SVG format.

Until now, I've had to say you can use IE, then get an addon from Adobe. "What? Why doesn't MS support this SVG thing natively? What if Adobe decides to drop support for SVG; then what happens? ..."

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an open-standard alternative to Flash.
it is a W3C recommendation.
there is a partially-implemented SVG native plugin for mozilla.
Adobe has a fully functional SVG plugin.

there is a Call for Participation at the SVG Open 2003 (in canada this july).

sites like homestarrunner.com could really boost SVG acceptance. if anybody out there is looking at homestarrunner.com as a model by which to base their plans for a similar site, please consider SVG!

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an open-standard alternative to Flash.
it is a W3C recommendation.
there is a partially-implemented SVG native plugin for mozilla.
Adobe has a fully functional SVG plugin.

there is a Call for Participation at the SVG Open 2003 (in canada this july).

sites like homestarrunner.com could really boost SVG acceptance. if anybody out there is looking at homestarrunner.com as a model by which to base their plans for a similar site, please consider SVG!

Congratulations, you've proven that RE's are useless. Except for the fact that the opposite is true, it's a great folksy argument. In particular, the authors of grep will be rather surprised.

The fact is that (1) hundreds of megabytes is a small data set and should fit whole in memory on a reasonable modern workstation (2) the limiting factor of processing file based data is typically IO (3) I'd expect one row of data to be read in at a time and the RE applied to that (4) the average time to apply a modest RE to a single row is much less than the avg time per row of IO

Now when it comes to scientific visualization, vector formats aren't exactly all the rage. Neither is XML, since those files tend to be rather large and there tend to be a lot of them - no one wants to waste bandwidth and space on closing tags.

Hmmm. Obviously you missed Session 7 at the 2002 SVG Developer's Conference, which was titled "SVG for (scientific) visualization". That's a complete crap argument anyway. XML compresses very well, typically 5-to-1. A .svgz file is compressed SVG. The open office document formats handily dispel your tired objections. One of the sample SVG files that comes with Batik is a map of the population density of Spain. Zoom in on it a few times -- if that doesn't satisfy you, I don't know what will.

In theory, it is a good idea, but it is only "widely accepted" (pronounced: "anticipated") by programmers who have been talking trash about Flash usability and want to play with vector art without losing face.

SVG has wide usability and even popularity in tasks far beyond Flash's ability. For instance SVG is the standard display format for geographical applications. SVG is used for some scalable KDE icons. SVG can be natively produced using open source software on open source operating systems. SVG is going to be embedded in the next generation of cell phones. SVG is going to be embedded in upcoming printers as a page description language. It is possible to print to SVG as you might print to Postscript or PDF. It is also possible to directly render PDF to SVG. And you will soon be able to output Visio diagrams as SVG. I've even heard of an SVG front-end for NetHack.

The point is that SVG can achieve popularity much greater than Flash's without displacing a single Flash animation. And once it has done that, it will be a small additional step to wipe Macromedia's proprietary, binary crap off of the face of the earth. ;)

By all means, use Flash for the time being. It is the best tool for many jobs. But don't think that SVG is a "theory." It is used by thousands of people in practice, in both commercial and open source projects. There are many businesses dedicated to building SVG tools, and whole industries being re-imagined around SVG. Its recent growth curve is amazing and I'm convinced it will be remembered as being as important as other major W3C specs such as XML and HTML before it.