Subject: Re: vector graphics support (was Re: image support (was ...))
From: Paul Rohr (paul@abisource.com)
Date: Thu Mar 02 2000 - 20:33:57 CST
At 08:09 PM 3/2/00 -0500, Leonard Rosenthol wrote:
>At 01:19 PM 3/2/00 -0800, Paul Rohr wrote:
>>Clearly,
>>adding enough GR_Graphics support for an XP implementation of a reasonable
>>subset of SVG would be a cool feature for AbiWord.
>
> Yeah it would - but it's also a LOT of work since the core graphic
>element in SVG are curves/paths (bezier and quadratic) and none of the
>target platforms have built-in primitives for these.
I think we have very different definitions of "reasonable". ;-)
Call me a heathen, but for now I think it would be an utter waste of time to
implement *any* SVG features which aren't needed to convert, say, PICTs and
WMFs. The short term goal is just to be able to reliably import those
graphics when found in Word files.
I thought both PICT and WMF were just replaying Toolbox / GDI calls, so
where does the need for mathematically advanced curves and paths come from?
These are the kinds of turbo-whizzy SVG features that would be nice to have
some day, but I'd be more than happy to do without them for now if we can
get away with it.
>So someone needs to
>write/find/port code to "convert" from these complex mathematical entities
>to an "array of points".
OK. This sounds like a manageable project. If you're short on time to do
this yourself, would you be willing to write up a POW describing what's
needed so that we can find someone else to do the legwork?
>>I'm not sure how many vector graphics formats are in common use, but the
>>more of them there are, the more appealing path (a) sounds, because all the
>>rendering work gets done once downstream for all formats, and the first step
>>is just translation.
>
> I would say that there are at least three major ones - SVG (for
>the future), WMF (Windows) and PICT for MacOS. I would guess that Unix
>folks have one, but I don't know what it is.
Thanks for the summary. That's about what I'd thought, but I'd hardly call
myself a graphics expert.
Paul
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