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Scalable Vector Graphics Format Candidate Released

Posted by timothy on from the must-say-as-one-syllable dept.

gwernol writes: "The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) has released the specification for the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format as a 'candidate release.' Because this is an XML-based format, it should be easy to implement, and could see wide adoption as a standard for animated and vector graphics on the web. Cool." And wouldn't it be neat to have a freely available, widely used free-both-ways vector animation format?

5 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. XMill by harmonica · · Score: 4

    Try it here. It takes into consideration the structure of XML for its compression model.

    BTW, the exact redundancy depends on the kind of data you're compressing. But because you cannot use certain characters directly in XML (you have to escape certain things like the ampersand etc.), you will always be able to reduce XML files a bit.

  2. Can We Call It SaVaGe? by GeekLife.com · · Score: 4

    It'd fit in real well with the whole "extreme" thing we've got going on these days.
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  3. Not quite by The+Pim · · Score: 4
    Because this is an XML-based format, it should be easy to implement

    You misspelled "a royal pain in the *ss". As the author of Gill makes painfully clear, vector graphics is hard, standards compliance makes it harder, and XML (with all the baggage it entails) makes it a monster. Care to share why you thought XML would make it easy?

    And wouldn't it be neat to have a freely available, widely used free-both-ways vector animation format?

    And wouldn't it be neat if everyone was happy, shared their music, and ran Linux on Alpha? Maybe, but it'll be a long road before we get there.

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    The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
  4. My job hits here by British · · Score: 5

    heh, I can now surf to here and not slack off at work. The company I work for is working on SVG, and i must say you can really impress the programmers when you can do/edit SVG by hand just to get things right.

    In response to asteroids, yes, someone did make an SVG/ECMAscript asteroids game. I couldn't make more than 1 function in ECMA script until IE conked out on me with bizarre error messages(I was doing functions for moving the SVG-rendered ship around).

    I would like to see this format take off though. Even though there is no sound support like Flash, it makes up for it in many other ways. I can't wait until I can scroll through blueprints on a web browser with all sorts of attention to detail.

  5. Re:Macromedia Flash already has the lead. by GeekLife.com · · Score: 5

    And that's the *only* advantage with Flash. Navigation disables browser controls, text within it isn't indexed by search engines or searchable with Find, you can't view the source, etc. SVG is cooler in every way except it's not out and supported by browsers yet. Which, unfortunately, may be enough to kill it.
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