Introducing Scalable Vector Graphics

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
XML Graphics for the Web

SVG is a language for describing two-dimensional graphics and graphical applications in XML. SVG 1.1 is a W3C Recommendation and is the most recent version of the full specification. SVG Tiny 1.2 is a W3C Recommendation, and targets mobile devices. There are various SVG modules under development which will extend previous versions of the specification, and which will serve as the core of future SVG developments.

The SVG Working Group is currently working in parallel on a set of modules, for extending prior specifications, and a new specification, SVG 2.0, which will combine those modules with the rest of the SVG framework to work across the full range of devices and platforms.

Older specifications include SVG 1.0 and the SVG Mobile Profiles: SVG Basic and SVG Tiny which were targeted to resource-limited devices and are part of the 3GPP platform for third generation mobile phones.

SVG Print is a set of guidelines to produce final-form documents in XML suitable for archiving and printing.


 Here is an overview of the current features:

    * management of title and description.
    * insertion of image, text and foreignObject.
    * basic shapes: square, diamond, triangle, circle...
    * lines, polygons, polylines and paths.
    * simple style: color, stroke width and opacity.
    * layers management: group, levels, alignment...
    * transformations: rotation, translation, scaling...
    * SVG templates: regular polygons, 3D shapes, arrows...


SVG has been in development since 1999 by a group of companies within the W3C after the competing standards Precision Graphics Markup Language (PGML) – developed from Adobe's PostScript – and Vector Markup Language (VML) – developed from Microsoft's RTF – were submitted to W3C in 1998. SVG drew on experience from the designs of both those formats.

SVG allows three types of graphic objects:

    * Vector graphics
    * Raster graphics
    * Text

Graphical objects can be grouped, styled, transformed, and composited into previously rendered objects. SVG does not directly support z-indices that separate drawing order from document order for overlapping objects, unlike some other vector markup languages like VML. Text can be in any XML namespace suitable to the application, which enhances search ability and accessibility of the SVG graphics. The feature set includes nested transformations, clipping paths, alpha masks, filter effects, template objects and extensibility.

Printing

While being primarily designated as a vector graphics markup language, the specification is also designed with the basic capabilities of a page description language (PDL), like Adobe's PDF. It contains provisions for rich graphics, and is also compatible with CSS for styling purposes. It is unlike XHTML and XSL-FO, whose primary purpose is communication of content, not presentation, and so which specify objects to be displayed but not where to place such objects. Conversely SVG is an ideal PDL for print-orientated uses, as it contains all the functionality required to place each glyph and image in a chosen location on the final page. A much more print-specialized subset of SVG (SVG Print, authored by Canon, HP, Adobe and Corel) is currently a
Scripting and animation