HTML 5 Canvas spec

This item of interest popped into my inbox, I wonder if our SVG-IG would
have any traction looking deeper into it.  Is it a threat or complement
to one's SVG work?  Is there a W3C recommendation about future pathways
for the various 2D standards?  
> David.A.Porter@Boeing.com
> Distributed Server Integration, GG-GG-5581, homepage
> http://grp-cno-dst-svr.web.boeing.com/
> Boeing Information Technology, Bellevue Washington USA
> * phone 253-223-4732, other contact options at
> http://card.web.boeing.com/WebCard.cfm?id=113185
Server Inventory links:
http://distributedserver.web.boeing.com/serverinventory/ServerInventoryL
inks.htm




A 3D Exploration of the HTML Canvas Element Greg Travis, DevX.com

The HTML Canvas, an element of the upcoming HTML 5 specification, allows
you to efficiently draw arbitrary graphics at the primitive or
individual pixel level. This article shows how to implement a 3D
rendering using the HTML Canvas. Vector graphics abound on the web, and
they come in a variety of formats, including Flash and SVG. HTML Canvas,
one of the newer incarnations, occupies a different niche from other
vector graphics systems. While SVG is a declarative graphics file format
that can be rendered by any kind of program and Flash is built around a
complete multimedia system (including browser plug-in libraries, the
ActionScript scripting language, and content-creation tools), HTML
Canvas is HTML. In fact, HTML Canvas is part of the upcoming HTML 5
specification. As such, the HTML Canvas is integrated into the DOM tree,
which means it can be accessed from JavaScript.
Thus, the HTML Canvas allows you to do many of the things that Flash and
SVG renderers can do... The HTML Canvas bridges the gap between HTML
markup and individual pixels. It allows you to efficiently draw
arbitrary graphics at the level of individual drawing primitives or even
at the level of individual pixels. And it lets you do it right from
JavaScript. This article describes the implementation of a simple 3D
game using the HTML Canvas (HC). HC currently is designed for 2D
graphics, but in the end, 3D graphics are rendered as 2D graphics, so HC
is fine for 3D as well. And, because HC is implemented natively, you can
get a pretty decent frame rate... Over the years, web designers and
programmers have put a great deal of work into tricking HTML elements
and CSS style declarations into doing unusual things -- all in the name
of pixel-accurate layout. It's always been hard to attain pixel-level
accuracy, because HTML was meant to protect you from layout details. As
you have  learned from the examples in this article, the HTML Canvas
enables you to bridge the gap between HTML markup and individual
pixels..." Summary, from the HTML 5 draft: "The canvas element is used
in contexts where embedded content is expected. It represents a
resolution-dependent bitmap canvas, which can be used for rendering
graphs, game graphics, or other visual images on the fly.
Authors should not use the canvas element in a document when a more
suitable element is available. For example, it is inappropriate to use a
canvas element to render a page heading: if the desired presentation of
the heading is graphically intense, it should be marked up using
appropriate elements (typically H1) and then styled using CSS and
supporting technologies such as XBL..."

http://www.devx.com/webdev/Article/38983
See also 'The canvas element' in the HTML 5 draft:
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#the-canvas

Received on Saturday, 30 August 2008 17:56:04 UTC