Published by Vlasta on September 19th 2012.
Supporting vector layers in the next RWPaint is only half of the solution. Sure, you can draw your vector pictures, rasterize them and save them as PNGs, but wouldn't it be better if there were a more direct way to interact with the outside world?
Each supported file format is like a tentacle reaching out to greet someone and the more tentacles, the more creatures can cooperate. For raster images, there is PNG and JPG, two very popular and universally known formats, but for vector graphic, there is no obvious file format to support. There are numerous proprietary vector image formats and then there is SVG. SVG stands for Scalable Vector Graphic (BTW aren't vectors always scalable?) and it is one of those extremely bloated file formats designed by W3C. As a programmer, I hate it. It is unreasonably complex - one thing can be expressed in numerous ways. It is kind-of capable of replacing html - there are styles, there is javascript. It is simply a bad format for vector graphics. But unfortunately, there is no real alternative, not even on the horizon.
SVG is here to stay and all modern browsers can already display SVG images. That is why I have decided that the next RWPaint will be able to export images in SVG format. Not everything that you can draw in RWPaint can be exported into SVG, but the basic properties of the drawn shapes can. There will be no import in the first version and even if it is added later, RWPaint won't be able to read every SVG file on the planet (as far as I know, there is no vector editor that can read every SVG file without losing some information - SVG is that complex).
Anyway, here is an image I have created in the beta version of RWPaint 2012 (using an old photograph of a vaguely familiar hairy fellow) and exported it to SVG (what you see below is an actual SVG file - feel free to download it and modify it in Inkscape, Corel, Illustrator or in a text editor).
(If you don't see the image above, you are probably using an ancient web browser, like Internet Explorer 8 or earlier.)
Oh, by the way, you can now use .svg images in addition to .png, .jpg and .gif images in your blog posts and other places.
Anonymous
on September 27th 2012
Cool vector. Sorry to hear that you hate SVG. I'm a big fan, mostly because Inkscape is a huge part of my daily workflow and SVG now enjoys universal browser support.
Then again, I don't open SVGs in notepad and mess around. Maybe that's where your frustration stems.
Anonymous