Who Created SVG?

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Why SVG?

SVG has many powerful features that are also simple to use, even for people with very little programming background. After you've finished reading this book, you'll appreciate the fact that some of the features in SVG would be very difficult to reproduce in other programming languages, even by experienced programmers. Furthermore, SVG has the following advantages:

• compact and portable source code

• scaled images have sharper resolution than 'gif' files

• no resolution loss on zooming

• complex images can be created involving transformations such as scaling and rotations

• well suited for business charts

• easily generated on the Web

• can be generated by Java Servlets and JSPs

If necessary, you can transform text files into SVG documents in a variety of ways, including XSLT, scripting languages (e.g., Perl, Python, Ruby), or Unix shell scripts.

The hierarchical nature of SVG allows you to define 'templates' of graphical components that produce very compact code. Moreover, you can also refer to external text files containing stylesheet information that can be 'included' in your SVG documents. As such, SVG makes it easy to develop a library of files and documents that can be combined easily in order to enhance your library of graphics images.

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