Re: HTML 5 Canvas spec [3D and SVG]

David,

Thank you for jumping in on this topic. I'm only jumping in now  
because I'm so behind in my email...

HTML 5 Canvas brings up an SVG frustration for us. That is, 3D displays!

SVG in my opinion becomes very interesting in the context of Web  
applications (as apposed to Web pages...I mean applications like  
Google spreadsheets, docs, etc.). However, applications - and  
especially those in life sciences and medicine - often demand 3D  
graphics.

A standard means for displaying high-quality 3D images would go a long  
way towards making SVG irresistible!

Don

Donald Doherty, Ph.D.
Founder and Chief Science Officer
Brainstage, Inc.
www.brainstage.com
donald.doherty@brainstage.com
412-683-1410


On Sep 3, 2008, at 12:16 PM, Dailey, David P. wrote:

> Hi David:
>
>
>
> David Porter wrote:
>
>
>
> “.[…]Is it a threat or complement
> to one's SVG work?  […] ‘A 3D Exploration of the HTML Canvas Element  
> Greg Travis, DevX.com’ “
>
>
> I thought someone else might make a stab at this but given that they  
> didn’t I guess I will.  Maybe I’ll say something wrong just on  
> purpose to see if we can persuade lurkers to join some of the  
> conversations.
>
>
>
> When I found out about <canvas> I thought it was someone’s attempt  
> to sabotage SVG. The Apple folks who promoted it tried to convince  
> others that it was something entirely different (using lots of fancy  
> jargon to make their point). I remained very skeptical.
>
>
>
> Then someone (like maybe Anne from Opera) wrote something in the  
> HTML5 discussions that basically said – hey mellow out – they both  
> do useful stuff. So I have mellowed a bit and concede the point.  
> <canvas> is likely to be a really fast way of blittiing pixels onto  
> the screen and playing with them. Opera and maybe others have been  
> playing with 3D canvas operations – if only we could put an <svg>  
> into a <canvas> so that we could read the pixels back from our <svg>  
> or implement the get Pixel value and put Pixel value operations from  
> <canvas> then we’d have something.
>
>
>
> I think the experience with Photoshop and Illustrator indicates that  
> it’s a lot easier to put pixel stuff into a vector environment than  
> to do it the other way around.
>
>
>
> My only concern remaining was that HTML5 would adopt <canvas> and  
> ignore <svg> in such a way that implementers might be able to  
> continue to ignore SVG. Doug seems optimistic that that won’t  
> happen, and he knows how this stuff works, so I think we can relax a  
> bit more now.
>
>
>
> In the long run, with the fact that Google now supports (some) SVG  
> in Chrome, it may soon be a moot point.
>
>
>
> I would be delighted if some one could put some really simple and  
> some really cool demos in the SVG-wiki that show a) how to use  
> canvas and b) how to combine the use of canvas with that of svg. The  
> symbiosis could be very cool!
>
>
>
> David
>