Re: IBM Developerworks article

Yeah, it's kind of backwards


Porter, David A wrote:
> This article sounded promising, but my hopes were dashed after reading
> it, it's concerning yet-another "vector" description language present in
> the <Canvas> tag, e.g.  namespace
> xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" implemented in Flex.
> 
> The article did mention that: 
> "The upcoming version of Flex, Flex 4.0, is also going to provide
> framework-level support for sophisticated SVG drawings." (cool!)  
> "The downside of this is that you have to learn these new APIs to make
> use of them." (not cool).
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------------
> Scalable Vector Graphics and Bitmap Rendering Using Flex Sandeep Malik,
> IBM developerWorks
> 
> In the world of graphics, two major rendering technologies have
> dominated the scene. The first and foremost, bitmap rendering, has been
> around for decades, and technologies and tools revolving around it have
> greatly matured. Images can be displayed in many formats, namely, jpeg,
> png, bmp, and so on... With the need for growing dynamics in Web
> content, it is imperative that these images "talk" and "respond" to user
> interaction. In other words, images need to have a behavioral aspect to
> them. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) do just that. It is important to
> understand what the words "Scalable Vector Graphics" mean.
> Vector Graphics means that the images drawn are not a collection of
> colored pixels. A vector drawing is like a pencil drawing where you take
> a pencil from one point to another and connect the points with straight
> lines, curved lines, rectangles, and ellipses. You eventually fill the
> closed area with various colors. Therefore, a concept of path is
> fundamental to vector drawings. The benefit is that this path is
> independent of screen resolution. Generally, the paths are developed on
> a unit scale, and then the entire graphic is rendered to whatever
> resolution the user wants, so the image quality remains unchanged even
> if the resolution is changed to absurd limits. We call vector drawings
> "scalable" because they can potentially scale to any resolution that is
> supported by the platform (generally a Web browser)... In this article,
> the author explains SVG in detail and show its advantages in comparison
> to bitmaps, with a focus on the current tools and technologies that
> provide support for SVG, primarily those that are open source.
> Embedding a rich bitmap is fairly easy in Flex (by providing the
> 'backgroundImage' property), and adding a component with vector drawing
> is even easier. This example opens up a new door of opportunities where
> an application designer or developer can make the best use of both
> worlds, while sticking to traditional bitmap drawing and using Flex to
> add SVG support.
> 
> http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-svgbitmap/
> See also the W3C SVG web site: http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/
> 
>

Received on Thursday, 19 March 2009 16:35:41 UTC