Inline Vector Images on the World Wide Web
Inline Vector Images on the WWW
What are vector images?
The two most common methods for describing graphics on a computer are bitmaps and vectors.
A bitmap is a way of describing the color of each point in a picture.
This is great for photo-realistic or rendered images.
A vector file describes how to draw a picture using lines, arcs, polygons
or other objects.
Why use vector images?
Advantages...
- For simple images, a vector description may be more efficient both for
transfer and display speeds as well as the amount of space used for storage.
- An image can be magnified to allow someone to look at more details
without requiring new images to be sent.
- A vector file can be "layered", allowing the user to turn on or off
the display of different portions of graphic information.
How would vector images be used?
Current applications that would benefit from using vector files...
- The Xerox PARC Map Viewer -
This project allows the user to look at a map of the world over the Web and magnify
details so maps can be made of any portion of the globe.
Currently, each time someone wants to magnify a portion of the map, the request is
sent back to Xerox, where a new bitmap image is generated and sent to the user.
A vector image would allow someone to magnify details without having to
wait for a new image to be sent.
- Stock market prices at MIT -
Charts of stock prices are simply a set of lines describing the rise and fall of prices.
As a vector image, you could look at the history of a stock over the
last few years or magnify a portion to just see the last few months.
Additionally, stock prices, gross sales, etc. could all be put in the same
image, allowing the user to toggle the visibility of the information.
To see a sample of how the information is currently represented,
you can take a look at the
stock prices for Autodesk.
- Engineering/Architectural drawings - CAD drawings could be inlined
allowing access to drawings to other people in the orginization.
There are currently one billion AutoCAD drawings out there.
Allowing easy access to these drawings would provide a big benefit to a large number of companies.
- Any graphs, charts, or simple diagrams.
Technical Information
All the nitty gritty details of the file format.
2nd International WWW Conference - Mosaic & the Web
The conference was in Chicago, October 18-20 1994. SoftSource headed a
panel discussion on the topic of inline vector files for the Web.
We got a lot of good feedback on our progress so far. Thanks!
If you have questions or comments on how vector images might be used on the Web,
contact gary@softsource.com.
For questions or comments on the technical details of inlined vector images,
contact scotts@softsource.com.
Related pages...
SVF Technical Information
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gary@softsource.com