Scalable Vector Graphics – Everything You Need To Know!

If you have tried to use vector-based graphics, then you are probably already aware of SVG designs. However, even if you haven’t done it yourself or if you have no idea about it, then SVG stands for Scalable Vector Graphics.

Here are a few things to know about them:

• Scalable Vector Graphics are used to define vector-based graphics. They are used primarily when you are defining graphics for the web. These vector based graphics include shapes like paths and outlines that include straight lines and curves. SVGs also include bitmap images and text.

• They were developed by World Wide Web Consortium in 2001 (which is about 18 years ago).

• SVG designs are defined in the XML format. Thus, they can be indexed, compressed, searched and scripted.

• SVG designs include many elements and attributes. Each of these can be animated and used as graphics in your work.

The file extensions used with SVG designs is .SVG or .SVGZ.

What’s more is that Scalable Vector Graphics can be created and used with any text editor and we mean ANY. However, it is better to use them on a drawing program, say something like Inkspace. Other than that, all major web browsers, and that includes Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera Browser, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Safari support SVG rendering graphics.

Some other famous SVG image producers or rather, some other vector graphics editors that are quite popular include Adobe Flash Professional, Adobe Illustrator, and CorelDRAW. Through these editors and software, you can produce common raster image formats like PNG and then use them when you need them. Inkspace has a built-in potrace that imports raster image formats, so that is why it is easier to use.

Other than that, if you wish to program your software in order to allow it to use SVG designs, then you can install an SVG library like librsvg. This has been used by GNOME since 2000 and is quite helpful in achieving the objective. You can also render your SVG images to any popular image format. This can be done by the use of a software called ImageMagick. It is a free command line utility that uses libsvrg as the library, too.

SVG can also be used for embedding in word processing and desktop publishing, for example with LibreOffice and Scribus respectively. These designs can be used for plotting graphs like in gnuplot, for importing paths, for example, for use in GIMP or in Blender. In fact, the latest Microsoft Office update has added support systems for importing and editing SVG images. Apple also uses SVG image designs. And the Uniform Type Identifier used by it is public.svg-image. This conforms to the public.image and public.xml.

So overall, that is about the gist of it. This includes all the significant things that you need to know about SVG designs, and if there is anything else, then you can quickly learn about it once you start using it.