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I've recently spent a few days providing some SVG consultancy, and during those days SVG allowed us to produce accessible, extensible, accurate reports - which could also be easily embedded in PDF (through XSL-FO and Fop).
With regards to competition from Flash, and other vector based software (e.g. creating Graphs in Excel), we produced a 'business case' list of points for SVG, which may provide a useful appendix to this article:
• Reduced cost. All the technologies used in the creation of SVG images (XML, XSLT, XSL-FO, SVG) are open, and available in free implementations, greatly reducing software license costs.
• Open – no lock-in. SVG is based on open industry standards; therefore there is no dependency on any particular creating/viewing/editing packages or proprietary software. Most industry leaders in this area (Macromedia, Adobe, etc.) support SVG within their software.
• Flexible style. SVG provides unparalleled flexibility – any reports/graphs can be generated in any style. Through the support for CSS, styles can also be quickly changed and updated.
• Use any data. Reports can be generated from any XML input; not just restricting input data to particular software formats. Input (data) can therefore originate from spreadsheets, databases, office applications, (X)HTML tables, and any application or data that provides XML capabilities.
• High quality. SVG images are scalable/vector based – images retain quality at any scale (from billboard sized posters to leaflets).
• Easily converted. SVG can be easily re-purposed for multiple outputs (e.g. PDF, HTML web pages, other graphic types such as JPG or PNG) due to its XML format.
• Automation & further reduced cost. Automated report creation is simple. Using MS Office, or other reporting applications, human interaction is required to create the reports; therefore there is associated time/cost (human resources) each time data is changed or added. SVG reports can be automated – each time data is changed or added a process can automatically create new reports, without the need for human intervention or an application open on the desktop.
• Re-usable templates. Each SVG report template (an XSL file that creates SVG from input XML data) can be used to create reports for different kinds of input data, and can be easily shared and adapted.
• Accessibility built-in. SVG has been designed with accessibility in mind; shapes and groups can be assigned titles and descriptions, which are available to text-readers.
• Copy/Paste/Search enabled. Text within an SVG image can be copied, pasted and searched.
• Animation. Shapes and objects within SVG images can be animated and synchronised, providing additional visualisation and presentation opportunities.
• Scripting/Interactivity. Through industry standard ECMAscript, SVG can interact with mouse events (moving, clicking, sliding), key presses, and user form input, providing interactive reporting capabilities.
Thanks,
Dan
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