[pm-h] Potential SVG Hackathon

[G. Wade Johnson]

I just realized that my last post may have given too limited a view of
SVG. It's not just used in GIS and cartography. SVG has also gotten
fairly strong support in the mobile computing area.

There are a few libraries on CPAN for working with SVG in Perl and
there's an Apache project, Batik, for working with SVG in Java.

If you'd like more information, check out the websites in my last post
or drop me a line.

G. Wade

On Sun, 8 Feb 2009 10:26:14 -0600
"G. Wade Johnson" <gwadej at anomaly.org> wrote:

> On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 06:56:04 -0600
> Mike Flannigan <mikeflan at att.net> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > G. Wade Johnson wrote:
> > > The SVG Interest Group is considering helping to coordinate with
> > > programming groups to do some form of SVG hackathon. The idea
> > > would be to help with any project using SVG and to help
> > > familiarize group members with this image format.
> > >
> > > Would any of you be interested in such an event if one were
> > > available in the Houston area?
> > >
> > > G. Wade
> > >   
> > 
> > I didn't know what SVG was, so I looked it up:
> 
> Sorry, I've been using SVG for quite a few years and forgot everyone
> doesn't know about it.
> 
> > SVG, or Scalable Vector Graphics, is an open W3C standard for
> > graphics on the web. "Vector graphics" means that SVG images are
> > made up of lines, curves and other "smooth" elements, unlike
> > "bitmap" formats such as GIF, JPEG or PNG. When you zoom in on a
> > GIF, JPEG or PNG, it gets grainy and blocky - but when you zoom in
> > on an SVG, it stays smooth.
> 
> The specification also supports scripting of elements (through
> ecmascript) and declarative animation (through SMIL). There are also
> advanced filtering features for changing elements.
> 
> > Reportedly like Flash.
> 
> That's a common misconception. SVG is more of a powerful 2D graphics
> format that can be scripted, rather than a system for building larger
> applications. You can build relatively impressive applications in SVG,
> but that wasn't it's main focus.
> 
> > It's often used for GIS/Mapping applications, which I
> > am interested in.  I'd like to hear what is happening
> > on a high level, so maybe I'll join the Interest Group.
> 
> There's an SVG developers group on Yahoo, which serves as a gathering
> place for people developing with SVG.
> (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers/)
> 
> The SVG IG is maintaining a new site at http://planetsvg.com/.
> 
> The SVG Wiki is located at http://wiki.svg.org/Main_Page.
> 
> Currently, SVG is natively supported by Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and
> the Webkit-based browsers (Safari). It is also being used extensively
> in the KDE window manager for Linux.
> 
> There are a couple of plugins for IE, but they have been less
> supported in recent years. New plugins are on the horizon.
> 
> Sorry for leaving out all of the background information.
> G. Wade


-- 
As a software development model, Anarchy does not scale well.
                                                       -- Dave Welch