RE: do vector graphics enhance our concept of self?

Hi Jonathan,

Charles sums things up pretty well, but a couple of potentially significant
factors, just for the record : SVG isn't supported (yet) anything like as
much as the other formats (boo!), though the Adobe plugin for web browsers
is good, and there are quite a few standalone viewers/drawing tools. On the
other hand SVG opens up a whole new world of interactivity through support
for scripting languages, and includes many features that are useful for
accessibility [1] (hooray!).

I think about jpegs as being like the stuff produced by old-fashioned (!)
photographers, and vector graphics as being like the stuff produced by
graphic artists (perhaps incorporating photographs/jpegs). Ok, so this
doesn't take into account the added interaction available with SVG, or the
fact that it's XML, but you know what I mean...

Having said that, although photo-realism is hard to achieve with SVG (and
makes for comparatively long files), there are certainly steps that can be
taken in that direction, e.g. there's a neat little tool 'Celinea' [2]
(DOS/Windows command-line at present) which can convert raster format images
(BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF) into SVG, which certainly produces interesting
results (editing the config file to reduce the accuracy of the conversion
leads to some wonderful semi-abstract graphics).

Going the other way, the Batik SVG toolkit [3] (and probably a lot of other
tools) allows SVG images to be rendered into raster formats (and whatever
Java programming you like ;-)

There are some nice SVG demos at the Adobe site [4], and at the SVG Wiki
[5], along with loads of other stuff.

(heh - I have a bit of a knee jerk reaction nowadays whenever anyone
mentions SVG, I think it's a pretty amazing technology. Hardly a week goes
by without me coming across something new that makes me go 'Wow!')

Cheers,
Danny.


[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG-access/

[2] http://www.celinea.com/

[3] http://xml.apache.org/batik/

[4] http://www.adobe.com/svg/main.html

[5] http://www.protocol7.com/svg-wiki/default.asp


---
Danny Ayers
<stuff> http://www.isacat.net </stuff>

Idea maps for the Semantic Web
http://www.isacat.net/ideagraph


>-----Original Message-----
>From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
>Behalf Of Charles McCathieNevile
>Sent: 26 July 2002 14:01
>To: jonathan chetwynd
>Cc: WAI List (E-mail)
>Subject: Re: do vector graphics enhance our concept of self?
>
>
>
>Please explain further - I am not sure if I understand...
>
>(in case I do:
>
>Do you mean photo-realistic pictures of faces, or cartoon-type caricatures,
>or somewhere in between?
>
>It seems to me that SVG is in fact a fairly small hammer for most graphics
>nuts, and it certainly supports transparency and sprites (objects whose
>position and other properties can be animated) in a fairly lightweight
>manner.
>
>GIF and PNG support transparency for photo-realism - as far as I am
>aware jpeg does not (but I am not a graphics expert). But if you
>embed a jpeg
>within SVG you can clip it, set its transparency, use a filter or mask
>effect, etc.
>
>If you can describe an example I will try to produce it in SVG (by
>using bare
>code editing instead of one of the nice tools that I never quite get around
>to installing - try doing THAT with the source of a GIF <grin/>. However I
>think editing code is a silly way to author in general, and appreciate that
>this is valuable because you can also do it with graphics tools that have a
>more appropriate user interface).
>
>Cheers
>
>Charles
>
>On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, jonathan chetwynd wrote:
>
>>Is there a (popular) graphical compression algorithm for faces?
>with transparency for sprites?
>>Are vector graphics capable of meeting this need? (svg+jpg seems
>like a large hammer for such a small nut)
>>Do we need such a minimal standard? (peepo uses gifs, and has
>done for some years, because of the need for transparency.)
>>
>>Looking through the music sites, the use of jpeg is noticeable
>(that is the absence of flash, or vector graphics) where
>representation of the artiste is concerned.
>>(Though flash is frequently used for navigation.)
>>
>>for films categorised by disability visit:
>http://www.disabilityfilms.co.uk/
>>
>>jonathan chetwynd
>
>>http://www.peepo.com
>>
>>
>>
>
>--
>Charles McCathieNevile    http://www.w3.org/People/Charles  phone:
>+61 409 134 136
>W3C Web Accessibility Initiative     http://www.w3.org/WAI  fax:
>+33 4 92 38 78 22
>Location: 21 Mitchell street FOOTSCRAY Vic 3011, Australia
>(or W3C INRIA, Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis
>Cedex, France)
>

Received on Friday, 26 July 2002 10:35:04 UTC