User talk:Dschwen/SVG explanation

Stevage's Rebuttals

Great print quality

Rebuttals:

• SVG's do not necessarily render better than a hand-tweaked image. Aliasing is certainly an issue with an SVG, it's just that it's either the MediaWiki software or the user's browser that performs the anti-aliasing, rather than a user with a high end image manipulation tool.
• It is unlikely that an SVG would print significantly differently to a high resolution raster image at an appropriate size.

Answer:

• It depends on the SVG viewer. And in my experience they absolutely do render better. Also you have the choice of resolution.
• It is actually very likely. Posterprinting and detail magnification being just two points.

Easy text editing

Rebuttals:

• There are currently very few SVG editors available, and they are not as good as raster editing tools. For most editors, it is much easier and quicker to make a change to a .png than to a .svg, depending on what the change is. Adobe's free tool is particularly slow, for instance.

Answer:

• This is plain wrong and misguided, you are comparing apples and oranges. There is a number of excellent editors. Adobe Illustrator being a commercial example. Inkscape being an opensource example. And if you want to bash those I'd like to hear some reasons why you'd consider them inferior.

Additional functionality

Rebuttals:

• MediaWiki doesn't currently support such hyperlinks, and recommending a format *today* on the basis of what it will do *tomorrow* is dangerous. Labelling diagrams in the text description (that's what it's there for) is searchable *today*. Searching within the image *may* work *tomorrow*.

Answer:

• Wrong. Mediawiki does support these Hyperlinks. Just open an SVG image and do not just look at the preview.
• Second part is wrong as well. It is a sensible thing to choose technologies that offer expandability over dead end solutions.

Translation

The SVG method

Create a diagram with the labels directly on the image. If other wikipedias want to use the diagram, they should copy the .svg and translate the labels.

Raster method 1

Create a diagram with no text, using numbers instead. Separately describe the meaning of the numbers. This legend should somehow be incorporated into the article.

Raster method 2

Create two copies of a diagram: One with text labels and arrows, and one with arrows but no text (or just space for text). Other wikipedias that want the diagram should copy the second version and fill in the gaps with a translation from the first version.

Tewy's Comments

• Comment. So this is a discussion? If not, then feel free to delete this comment: I completely agree that SVG is better than PNG, and if there's an image in both SVG and PNG, the SVG version will always be the best choice (at least for FPs). In my view at least, this argument is about whether a picture can be judged based on its filetype. Can an otherwise perfect image that only comes in PNG format be struck down because it's not SVG? Or can the filetype argument be considered insignificant to the quality of the image? If anyone wants my opinion, I think the filetype argument should be of minor significance (though still a valid reason), so that this hypothetical "otherwise perfect image" in PNG can still make FP. I would rather see a perfect image in PNG make FP than see a mediocre image in SVG make FP. --Tewy 21:14, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I moved it over to the discussion page. I am a bit split myself on the gravity of this issue regarding FPC. As you might have noticed I voted in support for the Wasp image. If a diagramm is just that awesome I cannot oppose it based on filetype. But as I explaned it, at the same time it makes me sad to see that the artist hasn't used the full potential by choosing the wrong application to create the illustration. And I mean wrong as an objective assertion here. Subjectively it might have been the right choice because of his proficiency in Photoshop and lack of experience with vectorbased software. But the violent opposition agains a clearly superior format makes my support for it all the more vocal (actio=reactio maybe). We must not stop telling the contributors to use preferred image formats, and oftentimes an opposition is likelier to have an impact than just a sidenote in a support statement (I might be wrong here though). --Dschwen 01:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Format conversion

Hi, I'm Jack. You may remember me from such discussions as "take a deep breath there, Dschwen". I'd like to congratulate you on having convinced at least one Wikipedian, myself, and because of this, I enjoy knowing how to convert various image formats into the wonderful SVG. In clear bullets for novices like me, thankyou :) - Jack (talk) 14:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, what should be done about the template:badJPEG? - Jack (talk) 17:22, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey Jack. For conversion from raster to vector check out this page (but ignore the sample image, it sux :-) ), it has a few links such as a comparison of raster to vector conversion software . Xara Xtreme might be worth checking out. --Dschwen 18:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The {{badJPEG}} is ok, its scope is a little different from {{ShouldBeSVG}} (for example it applies to pixel art). On commons there is {{Convert to SVG}}. --Dschwen 22:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC)