SVG symbols

[Sandy Fleming]

Certainly SVG seems to work very well for SignWriting, despite the
scepticism I've met with on the list in the past. I've attached examples
of Easter and Christmas cards I've done with SVG SignWriting - these of
course come with backgrounds which I haven't attached in order to keep
the email small, but you could experiment with your own.

And yes, as Jonathon points out, you could reduce the whole IMWA
dramatically by using SVG. More dramatically than he realises, I think,
because not only can the orientation be calculated from a pure number,
but so can the shapes for the fills.

Also Jonathon seems to think it wouldn't help much for faces, but I've
found it does: faces can be built up heirarchically from simple to more
complex shapes and such things as the head rims can be produced as a
single symbol plus rotation.

There are some gotchas: for example, fingers and shoulders won't scale
well if they're drawn as lines: the lines look thinner and thinner as
you scale them. You'd need to scale the thickness of the stroke as well,
and I suspect it would be easier to do them as filled polygons rather
than lines.

Incidentally, I'm on holiday for a week starting from tomorrow and won't
be on line, so maybe no speedy replies!

Sandy Fleming
http://bsltext.org/


On Tue, 2007-04-24 at 02:57 -0500, Pharos wrote:
> I noticed that in Steve Slevinski's correspondence with the Wikimedia
> language subcommittee, he raised the issue of SVG symbols several
> times.
> 
> I am aware that bitmap-to-vector conversions are a fairly common
> activity at Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia's image and media hub, mostly
> for flags and coats of arms which can be quite complicated.
> 
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/
> 
> I wonder if some Wikimedia Commons people would be interested in
> helping with the conversion?  I can't guarantee that how many people
> will participate, but it does seems like the type of project that
> could generate significant interest among community members.  Before
> we raise this issue there, though, I would like to know (1) how big
> the job would be, (2) if the job can be trusted to technically savvy
> people who are ignorant of SignWriting, and (3) what the current
> copyright is (if any) on the bitmap symbols.
> 
> Thanks
> 
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