The Next Wave for Graphics

by Bill Trippe

There are far too many three-letter acronyms (TLAs) already, and I have the nerve to throw another one at you. But I've thought about this long and hard and decided that you need to start thinking about Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). SVG may tip the balance and help the Web realize its potential as a ubiquitous interface to all content and applications.

SVG is a new graphical file format, based on XML, that flexibly incorporates vector graphics, bitmap graphics, text and style sheets. It's "scalable" in more than just the sense that the incorporated graphics can be scaled. It's also scalable in its flexibility. Because it's XML-based, SVG can be mixed with other formats — such as XHTML — and scripting languages — such as JavaScript. Entire Web pages or individual components such as graphics could be rendered with SVG.

The very presence of a format for vector graphics on the Web is significant. For all its promise as a graphical user interface and publishing medium, the Web has relied too heavily on bitmap graphical formats such as GIF and JPG. Bitmaps have inherent limitations; they tend to be static and difficult to reuse, and they often need to be optimized for the particular screen resolution of the displaying device. As a result, most Web sites are laden with single-use graphic files, and graphics are seldom used to personalize the presentation of material. Moreover, with the growth of non-PC devices such as PDAs and cell phones, the limitations of heavy bitmaps become even more pronounced.

The vector images that already exist on the Web largely have been rendered as Macromedia Flash illustrations and animations. Yet for all the, well, "flash" of Macromedia's authoring tools, the format has never proliferated all that widely. Internet Explorer has included support for its own vector format, VML, but the format hasn't caught on at all. The obvious solution is an open standard that can be created by many tools.

Enter the W3C. Last September, it published the W3C Recommendation for SVG 1.0, paving the way for software developers to begin developing products that support SVG. Adobe, Sun, Corel and IBM, among others, are all over it.

The compelling thing is that SVG is an entirely open, textual format. It can be easily generated from a database for applications such as dynamic page serving. It can also be modified on the fly for such applications as personalization. Adobe's site (www.adobe.com/svg) features several examples of data-driven graphics produced with SVG, including spreadsheet-style applications and technical illustrations for an aircraft lighting configuration. You can find other examples of SVG at the brilliant www.battlebots.com site.

One of the few things standing in SVG's way is the fact that it currently requires you to download a browser plug-in. I expect this will go away in some future version of Internet Explorer, which should add SVG rendering. In the meantime, this lack of browser support will create some hesitancy in the market.

The other practical challenge is a relative lack of tools for creating SVG, but this is changing quickly. Adobe and Corel, among others, are building SVG support into their products. And Adobe claims to have distributed more than 35 million copies of its SVG viewer. Perhaps more significantly, database vendors and content management companies are adding SVG support because they understand how important SVG is likely to become in Web development and publishing.

Bill trippe, (btrippe@nmpub.com) is president of New Millennium Publishing (www.nmpub.com), Boston, a consultancy specializing in electronic publishing, content management, SGML and XML.