Book Image

Mastering SVG

By : Rob Larsen
Book Image

Mastering SVG

By: Rob Larsen

Overview of this book

SVG is the most powerful image format in use on the web. In addition to producing resolution-independent images for today's multi-device world, SVG allows you to create animations and visualizations to add to your sites and applications. The simplicity of cross-platform markup, mixed with familiar modern web languages, such as CSS and JavaScript, creates a winning combination for designers and developers alike. In this book, you will learn how to author an SVG document using common SVG features, such as elements and attributes, and serve SVG on the web using simple configuration tips for common web servers. You will also use SVG elements and images in HTML documents. Further, you will use SVG images for a variety of common tasks, such as manipulating SVG elements, adding animations using CSS, mastering the basic JavaScript SVG (API) using Document Object Model (DOM) methods, and interfacing SVG with common libraries and frameworks, such as React, jQuery, and Angular. You will then build an understanding of the Snap.svg and SVG.js APIs, along with the basics of D3, and take a look at how to implement interesting visualizations using the library. By the end of the book, you will have mastered creating animations with SVG.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Title Page
PacktPub.com
Contributors
Preface
Index

Introducing paths


By far the most important element in the SVG specification is the path element. path allows you to draw lines and shapes using vectors defined by a series of commands passed in as values to the d attribute. Remember when I mentioned that one of the biggest roadblocks to SVG adoption was the lack of a friendly API? This path element is likely to be the biggest sore spot in the entire specification. The values you might see in a d attribute can be incredibly dense and difficult to read. How difficult to read? Feast your eyes on the S element from the SVG logo:

<path id="S" d="M 5.482,31.319 C2.163,28.001 0.109,23.419 0.109,18.358 C0.109,8.232 8.322,0.024 18.443,0.024 C28.569,0.024 36.782,8.232 36.782,18.358 L26.042,18.358 C26.042,14.164 22.638,10.765 18.443,10.765 C14.249,10.765 10.850,14.164 10.850,18.358 C10.850,20.453 11.701,22.351 13.070,23.721 L13.075,23.721 C14.450,25.101 15.595,25.500 18.443,25.952 L18.443,25.952 C23.509,26.479 28.091,28.006 31.409,31.324 L31.409...