IBM Developerworks article

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).



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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 15:29:10 UTC