[Add some humor, maybe?]
 | This message is a Public Service Announcement from some common users of the Wikipedian graphics lab |
Recently, there has been alot of public discussion and boosting of SVG image files for things like diagrams, flags, coats, logos, etc. Many people have, after reviewing WP:SVG and similar pages, have attempted to further this by tagging images that should be converted, replacing those that have been, improving them, etc. Many people have tried (and succeeded) in creating new ones.
Unfortunately, there's a big pit many have fallen into: the infamous "trace bitmap" function.
Explanation edit
Bitmap tracing has the software just draw the lines where it looks like they should go, based on mathematical functions. This usually results in poor looking images, and occasionally produces a outright disaster. In one case, a ~½MB coat was "SVGified" into a 10+MB SVG (That looked even worse than the image it was supposed to replace!).
NEVER do this.
If you wish to learn to SVGify things, start with simple images, check some on (or off) line tutorials and explanations, ask other users, etc. "Tracing" almost always takes longer to correct than starting from scratch and ALWAYS looks worse than the initial image.
"There is no Royal Road to good SVGs" and "Cheap and quick is ugly and [soemthing...]"
Ways to debauch SVGs edit
Some facetious explanations on how to annoy people with SVG debauches:
- Base your SVG on an existing raster image which has no place in Wikipedia, thus ensuring that your work of art will be deleted along with the original. A good way to do this is to find a clear violation of copyright, such as the logo of a Fortune 500 company tagged with {{PD-self}}.
- Choose an image with no possible purpose on Wikipedia. For a bonus point, be sure that no other Wikimedia Foundation projects have a use for the file, just in case someone finds a new lease of life for your magnum opus at Commons.
- Make sure that the SVG is lower quality than the original. Of course, no one would be silly enough to convert photography to SVG (would they?). However, realistic artwork portraying flora and fauna is perfect for this purpose, as the best you can hope to achieve in SVG is a cartoon-like representation.
- Produce an SVG significantly larger than the original. The more content you add, the more prestige you will gain: Wikipedia pays by the kilobyte. Minor league wikigraphists can gain a few extra lines by leaving in headers from the likes of Inkscape, but the professionals deploy more heavyweight techniques:
- Include the original image as a raster. (Think how much of your time this will save.)
- Trace the bitmap. Why express each pixel in a few bits when you can describe the co-ordinates of every tiny square to 16 decimal places? This technique is especially useful if the original uses anti-aliasing or (best of all) ClearType.
- Obtain a list of librsvg bugs and learn to exploit them in increasingly subtle ways. Any problems caused are clearly not your fault, as you can demonstrate the SVG working perfectly in the One True Browser. Particular favourites include:
- Lines with arrowheads (do not fall into the trap of converting strokes to paths)
- Subscripts within text tags