Batik, new release
The Apache Foundation has released a new version of Batik.
Batik is a Java-based toolkit for applications or applets that want to use images in the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format for various purposes, such as display, generation or manipulation.
Using Batik?s thumbnail function to navigate a complex SVG document
Batik is not only relevant for java developers. It also contains various tools that can help in converting svg files into other formats (see how we used it to convert the svg produced with Inkscape into a pdf), encode ttf fonts in svg font format or simply view an svg document in a browser (batik ships with the squiggle browser which is the most reliable svg viewer for the moment)
Last but not least, Batik’s latest release now supports many features related to animation.
Download batik here and enjoy!
2 Comments ↓
1. Andy Fitzsimon
Jan 18, 2008 at 5:12 am
Batik is an awesomely valuable set of SVG production tools.
Inkscape SVG support has often been benchmarked against what batik displays as an idea of what correct rendering would be.
Sadly Batik is not the best for exporting to PDF where it uses FOP to draw the vectors and are therefor subject to its limitations as as a generator.
It still rasterized perfectly, quickly and beautifully.
Squiggle is a must have for any SVG content authors desktop .
2. Femke
Jan 21, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Thanks Andy — Batik rendering is indeed unbelievably smooth; who would have thought this coming from Apache. Do you know of any other converters for svg that combine good rasterizing with better vector export? Or you think it will be just a matter of time for FOP getting better?
http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/