[GRASSLIST:5002] Re: Considerations for SVG 1.1 spec from W3C

[Glynn Clements]

Jack Varga wrote:

> Regardless, I stand by my original question.  This emerging spec could
> be very powerful and beneficial to the geospatial community.  It would
> seem that all but the largest of commercial vendors has something to
> gain by implementing interfaces to this vector exchange format.  None
> more so than an open source GIS, institutional organizations and
> governments paying absorbatant fees for overly restrictive licenses.  
> Particularly an open source GIS moving toward a more complex
> vector data model.

SVG isn't a "vector exchange format"; it's a vector-based graphics
format. Its closest competitors are Macromedia Flash, PostScript and
PDF.

SVG may well be a suitable output format, in the sense that we might
wish to produce a v.out.svg utility, or an SVG driver (analogous to
the PNG driver), or something similar to ps.map but using SVG instead
of PostScript.

It isn't appropriate as a storage format. It might be worthwhile
attempting to produce a tool which will extract geographic vector data
from an SVG file. However, such a task would inevitably be just as
complex and unreliable as extracting such data from e.g. PostScript or
PDF files.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn.clements at virgin.net>