Guild Wars Wiki:Requests for technical administration/Scalable Vector Graphics

Scalable Vector Graphics
This is a request for .svg files to be permissible for uploading to the wiki.

Type
This is a modification to existing MediaWiki software. Details for installation can be found here.

Reason
Vector graphics are a form of digital image, usually saved with the .svg file format. Without going into too much technical detail, they permit resizing and scaling of the image in question to any size without any loss of detail or blurring, as opposed to traditional raster graphics, which cause extensive blurring and/or pixellezation when resampling. Additionally, their file size is usually much smaller than a .png or even lossy .jpg for a visually identical raster image. A vector image will be perfectly sharp and smooth in the right places with all detail preserved whether it is the size of a stamp or a billboard.

Links

 * Introduction to vector graphics
 * SVG, the most common vector graphic file format
 * A comparison between the effects of scaling bitmaps vs. scaling vectors
 * Disambiguation
 * Installation SVG Installation
 * Permitting the file extension
 * SVG converters, to render images correctly

Pitfalls
SVG files must be converted to .png before they can be displayed in an article if they are any size except the default. Although it would not increase server load (a .png is a .png, whether created by an .svg or uploaded as a .png), this does require the host to render the image, which is stored in the page's cache. Moreover, some older browsers do not support the correct display of .svg images, though these are increasingly uncommon, usually limited to Internet Explorer 5.0 and below. Finally, it is perfectly possible for a person to create an .svg and render it for the wiki community when it is necessary or useful to do so, uploading multiple files at multiple dimensions. However, this can become cluttered and ultimately uses up more server space than an .svg file would.