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Free Software for Scalable Vector Graphics?

Posted by Cliff on from the vectors-GOOD!-pixes-BAD! dept.

aibrahim asks: " I recently found out about W3C Specification for Scalable Vector Graphics from the Adobe SVG site. So I was looking around for programs that would allow me to work with SVG on Linux, or any OSS system for that matter. Adobe plans on making almost their entire product line work with SVG, including Photoshop. Corel has released an SVG Filter. Yet, I couldn't find a single product with a Freshmeat search that mentions SVG. Looking on SourceForge reveals two projects: Gill and Savage. Neither of these projects have posted any files as of 9/2/2000. Are there any free software projects with a usable SVG product? Can anyone comment on when any such project may come to fruition? Lastly, since Adobe is including SVG features in Photoshop has anyone even mentioned it to the GIMP [?] develeopers?"

2 of 8 comments (clear)

  1. GTK+ based Dia! Comes with most Gnome distros. by BitMan · · Score: 5

    I use the GTK+ based Dia (Diagram Editor) all the time. It's kinda like Visio and I find it even more intelligent in design (as did a few of my co-workers who use Visio). It comes with any Gnome bearing distro, and is part of the HelixCode HelixCode distro as well. I believe the latest version is v0.85 (just auto-updated my HelixGnome the other day).

    Dia is extremly fast, powerful and flat out elegant IMHO. Dia is the vector graphics equivalent of GIMP, looks and acts very familiar. The native file format (.dia) is actually XML-based and quite extensible. All-in-all, I cannot find much wrong with any part of its design or implementation.

    In fact, the only thing it lacks is a wealth of templates and object libraries (although there a some good base libraries, they are small). This, of course, can be easily added by regularly users over time.
    [ Hey everybody, there's an OSS project you can easily contribute too! Help create a rich object library for Dia! ]

    FYI, Dia can export the following vector formats:

    • CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile)
    • DXF (Drawing Interchange Format)
    • EPS/EPSI (Enscapsulated Postscript)
    • PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
    • SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)
    • TEX (TeX PSTricks Macros)

    Using LyX and Dia, I can export both PS+EPS (easily converted in PDF) and HTML+PNG (or HTML+SVG) documents from the same original document in LyX+Dia (and the EPS graphics created in Dia show up WYSIWYG in LyX). If you're a tech writer, I think you'll find LyX+Dia a much, much better solution than anything else.
    [ Now only if they'd get the LyX codebase over to GTK+ as planned instead of continuing crappy XForms! And yes, I know about KLyX, but it is so out of date with the XForms codebase that it's not nearly as good. ]

    -- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

    --
    -- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
    Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
  2. SodiPodi by Booker · · Score: 4
    Try SodiPodi.

    Sodipodi is a small Vector based drawing program. It currently loads and saves SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format, a standard maintained by the WWW consortium and can also inport various bitmap fromats. All the standard tools that you might be familiar with from CorelDraw or similar, work more or less (Circle, Rectangle, Freehand draw). Version 0.15 also has support for node editing including breaking, joining, bezier curves, etc.

    As an added bonus, Sodipodi supports alpha channels to their full extent, even on bitmaps.

    Printing also works, using gnome-print. The only problem seems to be that Postscript does not support alpha channels.


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