xml-dev - Re: In praise of SVG

[Len Bullard <cbullard@hiwaay.net>]

Bill dehOra wrote:

> :Most of what is done with SVG, Flash does fine.  What SVG does better
> :is integrate with the emerging family of lexically unified, XML
> :application languages.
> 
> This is true, but this is the key value of SVG. It becomes a 'universal'
> format for defining images in the XML sense. It also means you can script
> over SVG with A DOM application, dynamically generate images, can embed text
> as text and can start thinking about image management inter alia document
> management.

Right.  It accomplishes what makes XML attractive over any other string
and 
type def'd language:  the agreement to stick with the lex and API brings 
the surface area of creating and maintaining multimedia way down.  That
has 
impact cost immediately.   The hard part is making the all of the
components 
available without driving the size of the plugin beyond tolerance. 
Parallelgraphics 
has a working solution for that for X3D.

> IMO the fact that SVG can do pan, zoom and animate and other gee whizz stuff
> is the least interesting aspect of it. It's more impressive that in the near
> future we will be able to search and query images, and reason with them,
> rather than just look at them.

I agree, but where you need levels of detail, pan and zoom are very
useful.
 
> The potential of SVG is enormous. But if it had 3D, we would have a
> universal format for physical objects. That's a real revolution, and being
> able to draw cool pictures is trivial in comparison.

VRML provides that now.  The issue is having the 3D objects cleanly
integrated into 
the XHTML framework so that scripting is as easy as possible.  If I were
an SVG 
plug in builder, I would probably take the X3D Core geometric objects
and 
see if they work.  IOW, drop the redundant pieces (field hierarchy
definitions, 
behaviors, routes, etc) and plug in the 3D geometry to see if it works
with 
the rest of SVG.  I suspect the case is yes.  That would put that vendor
in a 
good position to offer 3D extensions which given SVG's relative newness, 
would be lapped up like cotton candy without upsetting extant content of 
which there probably isn't too much.

len


***************************************************************************
This is xml-dev, the mailing list for XML developers.
To unsubscribe, mailto:majordomo@xml.org&BODY=unsubscribe%20xml-dev
List archives are available at http://xml.org/archives/xml-dev/threads.html
***************************************************************************