Re: Spatial Data on the Web and SVG : Comments on Spatial Data on the Web Use Cases & Requirements

Dear Satoru,
Thank you for contacting us! Your timing is impeccable. As you suggest, SVG may indeed be helpful for our SDWWG work. We are not chartered to do map rendering, but it is quite appropriate for out "best practices" to align with an existing standard that can do this. 

I wonder whether you would be able to join one of our sdwwg teleconferences held on Wednesdays at 13:00 UTC time zone? It would be terrific if you could talk to us about SVG capability for representing vector data, and perhaps point us to some geospatial examples? And take questions  from our group? Would you be available in the next month for this? Ideally, this will give us a chance to work through the ideas and possibly arrange some more formal interaction around TPAC where we will be holding our  second F2F. 

What do you think? I do hope you can help us.

< And Hello Doug! We last met in a tiny crowded corner pub in Sydney, maybe Sussex Street.. Nice to cross your path again! >

Kerry Taylor, 
Co-chair, sdwwg

> On 24 Jul 2015, at 7:43 pm, Frans Knibbe <frans.knibbe@geodan.nl> wrote:
> 
> 
> 2015-07-24 9:43 GMT+02:00 Satoru Takagi <sa-takagi@kddi.com>:
>> Hello.
>> I read Spatial Data on the Web Use Cases & Requirements note with
>> fascination.
>> 
>> As one the editor of SVG2, I am working on standardization of SVG.  The
>> motivation of the standardization for me is mapping of geospatial
>> information. I am searching for construction of WWW which geospatial
>> information and non-geospatial information fused there.
>> 
>> SVG expresses vector drawing information. However, it is almost equivalent
>> to vector geometry as used in the context of geospatial information. And
>> SVG has united with HTML, and web browsers interprets and draws it
>> natively. Accordingly, web browsers provides high-quality and high-speed
>> renderings without a massive Web apps for SVG.
>> 
>> And, SVG will improve the suitability as geospatial information more by
>> future evolution. Recent SVG standardization work contains advanced line
>> styling and markers, advanced animations, non-scaling objects, tiling,
>> layering, level of detail and the concept equivalent to the topology of
>> polygon etc.
>> 
>> Incidentally, our company is operating WebGIS which used SVG as geospatial
>> information as in-company information systems, and we realize that
>> potential.
>> Do you get interested in SVG as geospatial information? I wonder that your
>> activity and SVG should just become more familiar. 
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Satoru Takagi
>> 
>> W3C AC Representative, SVG2 Editor
>> 
>> KDDI CORPORATION, R&D Strategy Department,
>> Technology Development Division
> 
> 
> Hello,
> 
> Thank you for your message and for bringing SVG to our attention. SVG has been brought up in discussions on the Spatial Data on the Web e-mail list, notably:
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-sdw-wg/2015Feb/0076.html
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-sdw-wg/2015Mar/0002.html
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-sdw-wg/2015Jun/0059.html 
> But so far an explicit mention of SVG has not made it to the Use Cases & Requirements document. We do have a general requirement for Compatibility with existing practices. As it is phrased now, it is about existing practices for making data available. SVG could be viewed as such a practice, but it could also be viewed as an existing practice for visualisation of spatial data. I think we should at least consider bringing SVG into that requirement.
> 
> Personally, I think SVG is a nice way of displaying geographical data on a web page, especially in combination with CSS3. I am curious: are there any plans to have 3D data in SVG? Or to have spherical coordinate reference systems? Such things would go well with spatial data. 
> 
> Greetings,
> Frans
> 
> -- 
> Frans Knibbe
> Geodan
> President Kennedylaan 1
> 1079 MB Amsterdam (NL)
> 
> T +31 (0)20 - 5711 347
> E frans.knibbe@geodan.nl
> www.geodan.nl
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