We do what you propose, but use our build system (an ant script) to call
batik http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/batik/ and rasterize the images when
going to html. The way we have it set up, when you insert the svg image
in XMetaL, a macro sees it's an svg and pops up a dialog asking if you
want it rasterized. If so, it converts it to a png and displays the png
(since XMetaL can't display svg !?!). The system also runs an xslt on
svgs that come from Visio to workaround a Visio bug that causes
arrowheads not to appear in pngs rasterized from Visio svg source.
I understand that Inkscape http://www.inkscape.org/
<http://www.inkscape.org/> can also convert svgs to other formats from
the command line, but I haven't tried it.
David
________________________________
From: Colin Shapiro [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2007 10:24 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [docbook-apps] Image manipulation via XSLT extensions
Hello,
"Unfortunately, there is no single graphics file format that
meets all needs." - Bob
Bob is right. One of the biggest annoyances I have when writing
documents is that, when I want to insert a graphic, I must reference and
maintain multiple versions of the image file in order to accommodate the
various types of output I am producing:
<mediaobject>
<imageobject role="fo">
<imagedata format="SVG" fileref="figure.svg"/>
</imageobject>
<imageobject role="html">
<imagedata format="PNG" fileref="figure.png"/>
</imageobject>
</mediaobject>
Let's say I created a figure in SVG, as in the above example.
This SVG is my original image source, and in a perfect world, it would
be all I'd need to carry around. But, since we can't trust SVGs with
our web browsers, I must convert it to PNG and carry around another
version of the file for HTML output.
What if I actually could only keep the SVG, and have the
stylesheet somehow convert the image to alternate formats as needed? If
I run the HTML stylesheet, it sees an SVG, and calls an external
program--say, ImageMagick--to convert the file to a PNG.
This leads me to my question. I know that with processors like
Saxon and Xalan, you can write extensions in Java/JavaScript. It seems
to me that one would be able to write an extension to call ImageMagick
as needed. However, I have absolutely no experience with XSLT
extensions, and don't really know where to start.
I do know where to find resources on the subject. However, I
thought I would first post here to see if anyone has done anything
similar, or thought about anything like this before.
- Colin
