SVG 1.2 Comment: simplify vector effects

On Wed, 10 Nov 2004, Jon Ferraiolo wrote:
>
> You state that "have built-in support for GIS analysis", but in fact SVG 
> does not include built-in support for GIS analysis.

To clarify -- I was responding to the suggestion (which I quoted) that 
SVG's vector effects were good because they helped address GIS analysis 
issues. I wasn't saying SVG had GIS analysis features.


> The key parts of vector effects are that it allows great control over 
> the rendering of a particular shape. In SVG 1.1, you had one options: 
> exactly one stroke operation, then exactly one fill operation, and then 
> one marker operation. As a result, in order to implement SVG 1.1, user 
> agents have to have the ability (you guessed it) stroke a shape, fill a 
> shape and put markers on a shape. With vector effects, you now have 
> extra flexibility to change the order and the number of times you 
> stroke, fill and draw markers.

If it was just that, I would probably not be raising the issue. You could 
do the above just by introducing a new property, such as 'vector-effect', 
which took a list of one or more values, as in:

   circle { vector-effect: stroke fill marker marker; }

...or similar. That would be much less of an issue. The problem is that 
SVG 1.2 introduces at least sixteen (16!) different elements for this 
feature, all at once, with a large number of supporting attributes. That 
level of complexity is, as I've said before, frightening.

My feedback on this draft is for the working group to reconsider this, and 
instead of introducing a theoretically perfect, extensible, modular 
framework that can describe every vector effect and rendering model 
variation under the sun, simply introduce the very smallest extension that 
can address the majority of the needs.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Wednesday, 10 November 2004 15:56:08 UTC