- From: Chris Lilley <chris@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2000 18:50:33 +0200
- To: www-svg@w3.org
World Wide Web Consortium Issues Scalable Vector Graphics as a Candidate
Recommendation
Implementation testing the key to Interoperability
Contact America --
Janet Daly, <janet@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5884 or +1.617.253.2613
Contact Europe --
Carine Rigaud <cariner@fgcom.fr>, +33.1.41.18.85.55
Christelle Moraga <christellem@fgcom.fr>, +33.1.41.18.85.55
Contact Asia --
Kazuhiro Kitagawa <kaz@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170
Web resources:
Press release:
http://www.w3.org/2000/08/svg-pressrelease.html
Press release in Japanese:
http://www.w3.org/2000/08/svg-pressrelease.html.ja
Testimonials:
http://www.w3.org/2000/08/svg-testimonial.html
Scalable Vector Graphics Candidate Recommendation:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/CR-SVG-20000802/
http://www.w3.org/ -- 2 August 2000 -- The World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) has issued Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) as a W3C Candidate
Recommendation. Advancement of the document to Candidate Recommendation
is an invitation to the Web development community at large to make
implementations of SVG and provide technical feedback.
Web Designers Need Scalable Vector Graphics
Web designers have requirements for graphics formats which display
well on a range of different devices, screen sizes, and printer
resolutions. They need rich graphical capabilities, good
internationalization, responsive animation and interactive behavior
in a way that takes advantage of the growing XML infrastructure
used in e-commerce, publishing, and business to business communication.
"Designers are reaching larger audiences with an increasing variety
of Web-enabled devices. They need graphics which can be restyled for
different purposes," explained Chris Lilley, W3C Graphics Activity Lead.
"But most of all, they need to be able to handle their graphics the
same way as their text and business data, which nowadays are in XML.
SVG is specifically designed to let them do that."
XML Brings Searchability, Dynamism, and Extensibility
Web designers demand vendor-neutral, cross-platform interoperability.
W3C's Extensible Markup Language (XML) has become the universal format
for document and data interchange on the Web. SVG brings the advantages
of XML to the world of vector graphics. It enables the textual content
of graphics - from logos to diagrams - to be searched, indexed, and
displayed in multiple languages. This is a significant benefit for both
accessibility and internationalization.
Related W3C specifications such as the Document Object Model (DOM)
allow for easy server-side generation and dynamic, client-side
modification of graphics and text. SVG also benefits from W3C
technologies such as CSS and XSL style sheets, RDF metadata,
SMIL Animation and XML Linking.
In addition to being an excellent format for stand-alone graphics,
the full power of SVG is seen when it is combined with other XML
grammars; for example to deliver multimedia applications,
hold business data, or render mathematical expressions.
Bringing the XML advantage to vector graphics benefits all industries
which depend on rich graphics delivery - advertising, electronic
commerce, process control, mapping, financial services, and education
all have immediate needs for SVG.
W3C Ensures Stability of Developing Technologies, Builds Test Suites
Candidate Recommendation state is an explicit call for implementations
to the developer community at large, to use a maturing specification
and build applications based on it. There are already many open source
and commercial SVG implementations available. W3C is ensuring that
the whole of the SVG specification can be implemented, thus ensuring
cross-vendor, cross-platform interoperability.
W3C is extending its first SVG Test Suite, and updating it to match
the Candidate Recommendation of SVG. "We are providing developers with
the critical tools they need to check their implementations against
the spec," explained Lofton Henderson, editor of the SVG Test Suite.
"Test Suites enable developers to make conformant and interoperable
applications, which can then be used with confidence by designers."
SVG Enjoys Industry Support, Implementations Available Now
The SVG Working Group consists of key industry and research players
including, in alphabetical order: Adobe Systems, AOL/Netscape, Apple,
Autodesk, Canon, Corel, CSIRO, Eastman Kodak, Excosoft, Hewlett-Packard,
IBM, ILOG, IntraNet Systems, Macromedia, Microsoft, OASIS, Opera,
Oxford Brookes University, Quark, Sun Microsystems, and Xerox.
Increasing numbers of drawing tools export to SVG, and SVG can now be
viewed on many platforms. Forward-looking designers, who already
understand the benefits of vector graphics, are now gaining experience
with SVG and XML integration.
SVG will remain in Candidate Recommendation while the working
group evaluates implementations for support of each SVG feature,
and integrates public feedback.
About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]
The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by
developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure
its interoperability. It is an international industry consortium
jointly run by the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT LCS)
in the USA, the National Institute for Research in Computer Science
and Control (INRIA) in France and Keio University in Japan.
Services provided by the Consortium include: a repository of
information about the World Wide Web for developers and users,
reference code implementations to embody and promote standards,
and various prototype and sample applications to demonstrate use
of new technology. To date, over 440 organizations are Members of
the Consortium. For more information see http://www.w3.org/
Testimonials for Scalable Vector Graphics Candidate Recommendation
Adobe Systems | Apple | BitFlash Inc. | Canon | Corel Corporation
CSIRO | Eastman Kodak Company | IBM | ILOG | IntraNet Solutions
Jasc Software Incorporated | Lexica LLC | Macromedia | OASIS
Oxford Brookes University | Sun Microsystems |
Adobe is extremely pleased that the SVG specification
has been approved as a W3C Candidate Recommendation -
bringing it an important step closer to Final
Recommendation. Because it's built on open standards like
XML, SVG will enable designers and programmers to more easily
build extensible, dynamic and interactive Web sites. Adobe
is committed to helping facilitate SVG's broad adoption.
To that end, we will continue to freely distribute the
Adobe SVG Viewer and integrate SVG capabilities across our
product line - a process that's already begun with the
addition of SVG authoring capability to Illustrator 9.0.
-- Ron Okamoto
Senior Director of Product Marketing
Graphics and Dynamic Media
Adobe Systems Incorporated
Apple is committed to building the best products for
the creative market, and was a key contributor in developing
SVG, the new standard for authoring next generation graphics
on the web. SVG's support for transparency, ICC profiles and
ColorSync will be a natural fit with Quartz, our killer
graphics technology in Mac OS X.
-- Philip Schiller
Apple's vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing
BitFlash Inc. is proud to be an active member of the W3C
SVG Working Group. SVG is an integral part of BitFlash's
Wireless Graphics Server, powered by the company's ReflexisTM
Graphics Engine. We are confident that SVG will have a
significant market impact, enabling BitFlash to achieve its
goal of bringing rich, desktop-level content to wireless
devices and all Internet platforms.
-- Frederic Charpentier
President & Chief Technology Officer
BitFlash Inc.
The Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) standards proposal from
the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) holds the key to unifying
the imaging model and semantic structure for printing and
Internet display. Canon welcomes SVG becoming Candidate
Recommendation and expects it to play an important role as a
document format used in the circulation of documents in the
Internet era.
-- Satoshi Nagata
Senior General Manager
Digital Office Development Center
Canon Inc.
Corel applauds the work of the World Wide Web Consortium
on completing the Scalable Vector Graphics specifications.
In the 21st century, the computing world will depend on
tools that are based upon open standards, are easy to use
and work across multiple platforms. We are committed to
embracing SVG throughout our graphics applications,
including the upcoming CorelDRAW 10 Graphics Suite, and
leveraging this emerging technology for Web graphics.
-- Derek J. Burney
Executive Vice-President
Engineering and Chief Technology Officer
Corel Corporation
CSIRO is pleased to have played an important role in the
development of Scalable Vector Graphics. SVG opens up new
possibilities for delivering map-based information over the
Internet. Our experience in geo-spatial applications has
allowed us to use this newly emerging standard to provide
innovative solutions for Web Mapping. In fact, we're already
using the SVG standard to deliver integrated property and
planning information for local government authorities
over the Internet.
-- David Abel
Science and Industry Manager
CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences, Australia
We are very pleased to see that the first release of the
SVG specification has reached this significant milestone of
Candidate Recommendation. Using SVG, IBM's customers will be
able to bring higher-quality graphics to their Web pages,
their e-business applications, and the ever-increasing number
of Web-enabled mobile devices. The SVG Candidate Recommendation
is an important step toward establishing a true vector graphics
encoding standard, which IBM supports as a necessity for
cross-industry interoperability.
-- Rod Smith
Vice President of Emerging Technologies
IBM
ILOG has been involved in definition of SVG since the beginning,
and in fact, has one of the first products to support the
standard, ILOG JViews 3.0 graphical user interface. With our
customers moving applications to the web, SVG will allow for
easy interoperability among many different graphics programs.
We see this flexibility and interactivity as an extension of
our product strengths in those areas, features that have made
ILOG GUIs successful in telecom network management, supervision
and workflow applications.
-- Patrick Albert, Chief Technology Officer, ILOG
As a leader in Web content management solutions and
information access technologies, IntraNet Solutions
enthusiastically embraces the SVG Candidate Recommendation.
Through SVG, our Web content management customers will be able
to display diagrams and schematics from a single source document
on diverse devices at various resolutions without any degradation
of quality. For application developers using our XML-based
technologies to access information locked in business documents,
the conversion of business graphics to SVG gives them a single
industry-standard interface for searching, manipulating and
publishing a wide variety of vector formats. As a robust,
integrated standard, SVG provides the industry with a powerful
tool for breaking down barriers to information access.
-- Scott D. Norder,
President, Information Exchange Division
IntraNet Solutions, Inc
Scalable Vector Graphics will play an important role in
transforming the Web into a truly interactive and visually
appealing environment. Jasc Software is pleased to support the
World Wide Web Consortium's efforts in creating a vector
graphics standard that will be open to all vendors and end-users.
Through the use of new and innovative programs such as Jasc
Trajectory Pro, Web designers of all levels will be able to
fully experience the many benefits and accessibility of SVG.
-- Kris Tufto, CEO
Jasc Software Incorporated
Kodak welcomes the advancement of SVG as an important element
to enabling both graphical and image-intensive creative
web-based applications. Such applications are fundamental to
delivering new products and services through our Print@Kodak
Internet photofinishing service. SVG will speed the development
and expand the use of KODAK applications.
-- Stephen Shaffer, CTO, Internet Fulfillment
Eastman Kodak Company
Lexica LLC is a member of the W3C's working group on vector
graphics, SVG, and is excited about the potential for advanced
graphical and textual content on the web. The Java 2 platform's
2D API, containing a set of graphics, text and imaging features,
maps well to the SVG specification. Lexica is very pleased to
incorporate SVG into its other Java-based and XML software,
which addresses the insurance vertical market. The ability to
natively incorporate two kinds of metadata directly into SVG
structures permits knowledge-amplified graphical and textual
processing on the Web.
-- David Dodds, Senior XML Analyst and SVG working group
member, Lexica LLC
Macromedia is pleased that the SVG specification has reached
Candidate Recommendation. Through the tremendous adoption of
Macromedia Flash, we have seen vector graphics become an
increasingly important component of the web experience, and
SVG will introduce a rich interchange format that can be
implemented across tools and technologies.
-- Peter Santangeli, Macromedia
Netscape is pleased to see SVG has progressed to Candidate
Recommendation. We believe the web user's experience will be
greatly enhanced by a vector graphics standard designed
specifically for the Web. Many of the raster images on the Web
could be replaced with vector graphics that offer compact
downloads, device independent resolution, and retention of
textual data for searching and indexing. Netscape is working
to enable ubiquitous SVG support in browsers and applications
through our open-source development initiative.
-- Jim Hamerly, Vice President of Client Product Development
Netscape Communications Corporation
OASIS is proud to have contributed to the development of SVG.
We believe it will be an important addition to the family of
XML standards--one that will benefit all OASIS members, users
and vendors alike. As an organization dedicated to XML
interoperability, OASIS looks forward to opportunities to
continue our work with SVG, much as we did with WebCGM after
it became a W3C Recommendation.
-- Laura Walker, Executive Director, OASIS
We are delighted to see SVG progress to Candidate Recommendation.
This is an important step along the road to making the Web more
"graphics friendly".
-- David Duce, School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences
Oxford Brookes University
Sun is a strong proponent of SVG. SVG is a powerful enabling
technology for the Web and especially promising when combined
with the Java (TM) 2 platform to develop dynamic, interactive
Web applications. Also, its open, standards-based nature is
complementary to Sun's own computing vision, which relies
upon open standards and non-proprietary interfaces. The goal
of SVG is to provide an open, standards-based alternative to
proprietary formats for scalable vector graphics. With SVG,
users will finally have a single, standard format with which
to work and a simple solution for delivering high quality
graphics to all web environments.
-- Bill Smith, Manager, XML Technology Center,
Sun Microsystems, and President, Board of Directors,
OASIS
Received on Wednesday, 2 August 2000 12:50:47 UTC