Re: SVG to PNG [was: Ada_Arrays Project]

["Rodrigo Garcia" <rodrigo.garcia@epfl.ch>]

You already have an open source product for this (in Java): Batik from the
Apache Software Foundation.
"Another possibility is to use Batik's modules to convert SVG to various
formats, such as raster images (JPEG,PNG or Tiff)."

More in:
http://xml.apache.org/batik/index.html

Rodrigo

"Nick Roberts" <nick.roberts@acm.org> wrote in message
news:bq5r6r$1uos2e$1@ID-25716.news.uni-berlin.de...
> M?rio Amado Alves wrote:
>
> > I'm entertaining the idea of a generic package Ada_Arrays and children
> > where Ada_Arrays is like Ada.Strings except the element type is
> > generic instead of Character.
> >
> > Anybody besides me foresees the great usefulness of Ada_Arrays?
> > Anybody did it?
>
> I think it's the sort of thing that has been done before by lots of
people,
> generally not in a very organised or uniform way. I would guess the
biggest
> problem would be that people would be reluctant to pay for this sort of
> thing; they would think "Crikey, I could just as easily write that
myself,"
> even if they actually were wrong.
>
> > I'm considering doing it by program(med) transformation of existing
> > source-code for Ada.Strings. My first studies indicate semantic
> > analysis is required, so this might configure an ASIS application.
>
> I suggest that much of the interfaces of the Ada.Strings.*_Strings
packages
> are specific to the Character (component) type, and not sensibly
applicable
> to a generic array interface. I think this sort of package would be
sailing
> perilously close to the treacherous waters of the 'containers
controversy'.
>
> > (I'm also interested in this project as a test case for open source
> > software licensing. I'd like to release it under a "commercial open
> > source" license like one of those endorsed by the Software Developers
> > Cooperative (www.softdevelcoop.org). Specially if done by way of
> > program transformation from the GPLed GNAT, the licensing of
> > Ada_Arrays is a complex issue.)
>
> Allow me to suggest an alternative project, which I believe has a gap in
> the market at the moment, and could be commercially attractive.
>
> I am not aware of any commercial program at the moment which can convert a
> standard SVG source file into a suitable image format file (I suggest PNG
> as the first target to aim at). There is the SVG viewer offered by Adobe,
> but it has problems (bugs, deviation from the standard, certain standard
> facilities not supported, slowness/inefficiency), and I'm not sure that it
> can actually genarate image files anyway. There may be some high-end
> products taht are very expensive, but if so that seems to leave a gap at
> the lower-cost end.
>
> I think this would be a suitable product to be written in Ada, because it
> would require little or no platform-specific code, and it would suit Ada's
> strengths: efficiency and reliability. It would be impossible to
> accommodate any interactive features, of course, and animation would lead
> us to the complexities of animated GIFs or MNG files (but might be
possible).
>
> I understand there are some Ada XML packages available (I'm not sure on
> what terms), one of which could be used as a starting point for reading
the
> SVG source files. I believe there is an Ada PNG package (again I'm not
sure
> about its availablity).
>
> There are further possibilities with conversions between HTML, XSL-FO,
> PS/EPS/PDF, and other presentation formats.
>
>  > Anybody interested in collaborating?
>
> If you're interested in something like this, Mario, I might be interested
> in collaborating. It would be important to plan the project carefully.
>
> -- 
> Nick Roberts
>