PROPOSED SVG Working Group Charter

Scope

Scalable Vector Graphics has matured into a widely-implemented specification for interactive graphics, used in viewers, authoring tools, and other standards. The SVG Working Group will build upon this solid foundation by adding new graphical and behavioral features to make it even easier for content creators to make compelling and effective graphical content. This includes syntactic sugar and canned effects for some of its more powerful features such as filters and animation.

Since SVG is also used as part of a platform for rich Web applications, both alone and in combination with other technologies such as HTML, the SVG Working Group must address the needs of web application developers. In particular, the SVG Working Group will work with implementers and other experts to redesign the SVG DOM APIs and certain syntactic conventions, to make them simpler and more performant, and to integrate SVG more closely with other web languages, to improve use in gaming, multimedia experiences, and interactive data visualization. The group will also work with accessibility groups to define more precise measures for accessible info-graphics.

Many features of SVG were successful enough to be adopted by CSS, such as gradients, filter effects, and animations, and in order to ensure interoperability, the SVG Working Group is working closely with the CSS Working Group to co-develop those features, to provide a consistent model for authors and implementers.

Many authors integrate SVG and HTML content, and this group will work with the HTML Working Group to improve that integration. In addition, the SVG Working Group may propose to work with the HTML WG to develop a shared graphical API for both SVG and the Canvas API, which could provide a complementary method for creating dynamic raster graphics.

For backwards compatibility with existing implementations and content, the group will provide a clear upgrade path from SVG 1.1 and SVG Tiny 1.2 to SVG 2. Some of the new functionality of SVG 2 may be defined in stand-alone modules which can be incrementally added to implementations of those earlier specifications. A modular approach may also help promote quick review and progress toward implementations and Recommendation status.

For all new work, the SVG Working Group intends to gather and publish produce use cases and requirements, primers to illustrate the purpose and use of specifications, test suites to ensure interoperable implementations, and where possible, script libraries to prototype features and allow for early experimentation and adoption by authors.

In addition, the SVG Working Group will continue to maintain existing SVG specifications, publish errata and new revisions where required, update test suites, and provide current implementation reports.

Success Criteria

Each SVG specification will be considered successful if there are at least two independent, interoperable implementations of each normative assertion for features defined by the specification. The group will be considered successful if it progresses one or more of the deliverables to W3C Recommendation status.

Additional discretionary goals for the group include:

• Facilitating more widespread adoption of SVG by content authors and developers.
• Increasing the availability of SVG authoring tools, and implementations on mobile devices, set-top boxes and televisions, printers, and other embedded devices.