SVG update

By Mark Gibbs
Network World, 02/04/02

"Yes raster is faster, but raster is vaster, and vector just seems more correcter."

- Professor Dana Tomlin, University of Pennsylvania

Some weeks ago . . . wait a minute, it was last June! Doesn't time fly when you're enjoying yourself? Anyway, way back then we spent a few columns discussing a new graphics technology called Scalable Vector Graphics, or SVG.

Well, SVG has matured to become a World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation, and members of the SVG community are forging ahead with dreams of world domination dancing in their heads.

A good example of this drive is an article by Antoine Quint titled "Digging Animation" on XML.com, in which Quint discusses how a Flash animation can be migrated to SVG - something that should gladden the hearts of all who would prefer to see ubiquitous Flash Web presentations disappear without a trace. (Frankly, we don't see the problem with Flash. If you are one of these naysayers, please enlighten us.) Hmmm, interesting thought: If SVG really becomes dominant, could we see Macromedia dumping its proprietary Flash in favor of the open-standard SVG?

Something we have noted about SVG is that cartographers in particular seem to be getting very interested in SVG as a standard for mapping. And check out a fantastic example here (be patient, it is slow but worth it).

Anyway, in the last of those Gearhead columns we mentioned an SVG editor from Jasc Software called WebDraw that, at that time, was in prerelease beta. It is now in full release and worth a serious look.

While there are a few other well-developed SVG editors out there, WebDraw is one of the easiest to use. Installation is trivial, and the user interface very straightforward. There are panels for creating and modifying the image, inspecting the resultant Document Object Model and properties, and editing the document's timeline that controls the sequence and timing of events that create animation.

The graphics-editing facilities are pretty good, offering the usual tools for drawing. There are also effects such as bevels and various color fills.

We must note once again, as in so many applications, the tool tip help - those text bubbles that pop up when the mouse hovers over a toolbar icon - doesn't always appear. This is very annoying, and as we have seen it so often, we're starting to think it may be Microsoft's problem rather than one belonging to application developers - anyone care to comment?

Anyway, within WebDraw you can open or import SVG files (including compressed SVG images - that's the .svgz or .svg.gz types) and import PNG and JPEG images. For output, you are limited to uncompressed and compressed SVG formats.

Once you have arranged all the components of your image, you can add animation. You can also create keyframes on a timeline where one or more attributes are to change. Simply select the point on the timeline when something is to happen and select the objects that the something is to happen to (for example, change color) and apply the modification.

WebDraw lets you examine, edit and extend the underlying SVG coding. You can also preview your creation in a window in WebDraw or launch a browser to check out your handiwork.

If you are exploring what you could do with your Web site, check out SVG. At $130, WebDraw shouldn't break the bank. WebDraw is still evolving and is hereby awarded eight gearteeth out of 10.

Now, as you start to work with SVG images, you will need to convert raster images to SVG. There are a few tools out there that attempt to do this tricky task. There are fds for SVG from PADC Lab, University of Tsukuba and CR2V from Christophe Vantighem. This tool seems to give generally terrific results, but at present there seems to be a problem with the downloaded ZIP file being corrupted.

What do you think of SVG? Graphic descriptions to gearhead@gibbs.com.