= About SVG Those who work with graphics for internet use are familiar with the problems tied to publication of images on the web. Traditionally, '''bitmap '''images (such as '''JPG''' or '''GIF''') have been the only option for use in such documents, with the disadvantage that these images are either too large for quick transfer or, if they are small or highly compressed to reduce file-size, of poor quality. As a solution to this problem, '''Macromedia''' created the '''Flash''' image format. While Flash satisfactorily solved the main problems inherent to bitmap images, there has been discontent for some users that the common '''vector format''' for the web is dependent solely on Macromedia for development of the file format and software. In order to address this discontent and provide an open option for vector graphics, the '''W3C''' created the '''SVG''' file format, making a freely usable vector format available to everyone. Most image files are only able to be read by specific software that renders the image. SVG, however, is described in '''XML''' and '''CSS''', and its files can be opened and edited in any '''ASCII''' text editor. While it is possible to create SVG images in this manner, it is highly unproductive and unintuitive. SVG editors and renderers have the ability to easily open and manipulate SVG files without a special interpreter. == Objectives of the SVG Format The advantages of SVG are the same as for any vector image: high-quality images that are smooth and crisp ability to resize the image to any dimensions without diminishing quality, which is impossible with bitmap images. The SVG standard also defines animation, and with a little use of '''Javascript''', one can make SVG interactive. Finally, since SVG is written in XML, it is possible to create graphics based on data that is stored in other XML-based formats, such as graphs, charts and maps. Despite its benefits, there is a lack of usable software to create and edit SVG files and take full advantage of its capacities; for this reason, SVG is not as usable at the moment as Flash. == The Current State of SVG Software Creation of SVG files can be accomplished with several software applications today, both free and proprietary: Inkscape, Sketch/Skencil, sK1, Karbon14, xfig, Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Xara, and any ASCII text editor. Currently, although SVG is not well supported by most web browsers, Mozilla (Firefox, Netscape) and other browsers (such as Safari, Konqueror) support a basic subset of SVG, and there are plugins available for Internet Explorer (i.e. Renesis) which support most of the SVG standard. Amaya has good support for SVG display, including animations, and can also be used as a basic editor. The Batik toolkit is a very useful tool for SVG display, and is often used as a reference for checking SVG implementations.