SWF v. SVG - Which Should You Choose?

It used to be that a Website only needed good content to be cutting edge. Now any decent site will use rich multimedia to engage and retain visitors. There are two primary multimedia solutions you can use: Macromedia's Flash, or the Structured Vector Graphics format, also known as SVG.

The technology behind both these formats is not new. It's a graphics format called Vector. The difference between conventional Web graphics (such as those annoying animated GIFs) and vector graphics is how the final graphic is created. GIF and JPEG graphics raster graphics -- each image is create pixel by pixel. On the other hand, vector graphics use mathematics to build the graphic. The program plots point A, point B and point C, fills a color into the space created, and voila! You have a triangle. Typically, Vector graphics are much smaller in file size that traditional GIF and JPEG graphics, which has made Vector programs such as Flash very popular -- over 380 million people have downloaded the Flash plugin to date.

Flash is the dominant Vector graphics program on the Internet. Millions of users access thousands of sites powered by Flash each day. Unlike HTML, which is, by its nature, a static language, Flash is dynamic and designed specifically to engage the user. If this was not enough, each Flash movie is typically very small, enabling CD-ROM-like experiences over slow dial-up Internet connections. The success of Flash can be seen through the evolution of the online ad industry, as Flash advertisements begin to replace annoying blinking animated GIFs. The result is a richer, more engaging and creative advertising solution. Examples of Flash advertising can be seen at popular sites such as weather.com, SciFi.com and News.com.

However, Flash isn't the only Vector graphics format on the market. There is also SVG, the Structured Vector Graphics format: an XML-formatted, scriptable graphics format. SVG does not share Flash's ubiquitous presence on the Web. Its strengths come from its supporters and backers: Adobe and the World Wide Web Consortium group, or W3C. Adobe is a massive power shop that has the market for illustration and graphics management programs cornered. The W3C is headed by the man who single-handedly created the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, and who has established standards such as HTML, Cascading Style Sheets and XML. SVG is a strong contender for the Vector graphics crown. Examples of sites using SVG include DBx Geomatics.

But which is better? SWF or SVG?

The creation process

The speed with which standards come and go on the Web is astounding. Anyone remember Web channels? That came and went within 6 months back in '97. It didn't last because the tools required to build Web channels hadn't been created. Users had to code channels by hand, which meant that most users couldn't access the technology. Obviously, for a new concept to work, users must be provided with tools that allow them to easily access the full power of the technology.

Macromedia have followed this philosophy with Flash. To begin with, they've built Flash into many of their products. Flash is the only product that completely exposes all functionality, which not only includes graphics and animation, but access to a powerful scripting engine within Flash called ActionScript. To supplement Flash are Freehand and Fireworks, two Web-centric graphics programs that natively export images in the Flash format. In addition, Macromedia's Dreamweaver also produces custom Flash text and buttons for Websites.

That's great, but not everyone likes to work with products from just one company. To allow additional companies to support the Flash file format, Macromedia gave away the source code needed to create a Flash movie. The success of this move has been huge. Now, all the major graphics tools, including Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw, export natively in the Flash format.

Third party software that exports to Flash movies has also begun to spring up. Over 50 different programs now create files that are Flash-enabled. This includes products that create animated text, 3D Flash sites and enhanced animation, as shown in Figure A.