Alternatives to SVG?

Question

I read while Googling that SVG was "dead." Although I do not agree, can someone tell me more / future vector format for representing 2d / 3d graphics? What about VML? What format should be used for presenting 2D and 3D graphics on the Internet?

I play with graphics on the Internet, and I would like to know if I work with outdated technology.

Answer 1

Microsoft supports SVG in IE9 and explains in detail why they do this on the IE blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/03/18/svg-in-ie9-roadmap.aspx

The main advantage of SVG is that it becomes part of the DOM, so you can use CSS to style it and javascript to change it. The canvas, by contrast, should completely redraw each frame. This makes the canvas suitable for spectrum analyzers, video processing, fast games and other non-gradual animations. SVG is better suited for gradual animation.

As for 3D, the future of WebGL is thin lining on top of OpenGL ES, but it is far away. Microsoft is not required to support it, which means that it will not be in IE9. Maybe IE10, maybe not.

If you use SVG, I recommend using svgweb to ignore browser differences (reverts to flash app on older browsers).

Answer 2

You can try the Raphaël JavaScript library.

It is easy to implement and provides the same user interface features as SVG (and much more!).

Answer 3

If it's SVG, you're after the best way to go svg.js. It supports SVG better, and it is part of the size (4.5k gzipped) of Raphaël (31k gzipped). It also has a very intuitive syntax.

Answer 4

All major browsers, including ie9, firefox, safari and chrome, are starting to support svg as part of the future html5 standard. I would not call it "dead"

Answer 5

This post is pretty late ... but I think it is worth re-addressing since your question reappeared in all html5 conversations.

SVG is a vector drawing format that also supports animation, synchronization, and DOM Javascript support. In other words, it is a stand-alone format for static and dynamic vector graphics; you can say this is a web-based (or movie) alternative to EPS / PDF. The html5 canvas tag is not a format, and the way to draw (static images) on the screen using Javascript is all; there is no competition between him and SVG, since they have completely different goals.

Most other vector "formats" include plugins (Flash) or hardware support (webGL). Ironically, the VML format you mentioned is now deprecated in favor of SVG.

To answer your question: SVG is now the standard vector format for the Internet. Hopefully in the near future we will see that it is also used for video / animation.

Answer 6

2D: SVG 3D: X3DOM or webGL directly