SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics
Overview & Status

February 2008,
David Dailey

What and why is SVG?

Client-side graphics Its impact on your web-server is light. Think: Dynamic Graphical Content!
XML It's readable by humans and looks a lot like HTML
Scalable See zoom.svg
Open-source Anyone can view source.
W3C standard It is nonproprietary and vendor neutral.
SMIL A W3C declarative language supporting multimedia and animation for non-programmers, SMIL is built in to the SVG specification.
DOM/JavaScript/CSS/AJAX It uses technologies already familiar to web programmers
Some overlap with
Flash,  XAML and Silverlight		 But it is better: nonproprietary, standardized, cross-platform, and interoperable with other XML languages and W3C standards.
Web applications Suitable for incorporation with HTML5, web-based applications, and Rich Internet Applications.

Where it is:

  1. Internet Explorer 5+ or Netscape 6+ with Adobe (or Renesis) plugin :
    IE(8?)
  2. Firefox 1.5+ (no plugin) -- 3.0 beta shows very good SVG support (faster too)
  3. Opera 8+ (no plugin) Opera 9.5 beta --  includes <video> <foreignObject>
    http://svg.org/story/2007/11/7/221859/779 -- Opera has most complete SVG support
  4. Safari (Mac and Windows -- no plugin) -- big - fast - rapid development is in progress.
  5. Konqueror, Safari, Renesis, Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator, Apache Batik etc.
  6. 300 million cell phones and other mobile devices (Ikivo, Bitflash, I-phone, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, etc.).
  7. World's busiest pedestrian intersection (Shibuya station Tokyo)
  8. Tokyo and Germany (SVGOpen)
  9. others to come -- Rich Internet Applications, dynamic bumper stickers, refrigerators, billboards with sensors, credit cards, light shows, score boards, cinema.

SVG Basics

Examples