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There are many other popular vector graphics formats beyond those mentioned here. Lottie has already displaced SVG for animation/motion graphics, and for static

There are many other popular vector graphics formats beyond those mentioned here. Lottie has already displaced SVG for animation/motion graphics, and for static content IconVG exists and is backed by Google. There's also PDF, PostScript, Flash, the glyf format in OpenType, etc.

dosshell 5y ago
I have heard very good words about the eps format from a vector-format nerd (he reads file format specifikation books because its fun). I would love to here more opinions about eps from other developers. How does eps really compare with the other formats mentioned above?
- andybak 5y ago
  I've been avoiding EPS like the plague for several decades. Unless something has changed since I last looked it would be well below SVG on my preferred format list.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  I can't imagine those good words ever came from anyone that has actually used it.
- heleninboodler 5y ago
  EPS is just PostScript that's designed to be more embeddable. It's a PostScript program that contains some metadata like a preview image (so you can display a thumbnail when embedding it even if you don't have a PS interpreter) and a bounding box (since PS has an arbitrary coordinate system, in order to represent an embedded document without actually interpreting it, you need to know the bounds of what it's going to draw). The big problem with PS, EPS and Flash as simple graphics formats is that they're all turing complete and you can author documents that will never terminate. When importing EPS, Illustrator used to have a timeout and would fail if the render didn't complete in a couple minutes. I assume it still does, but haven't tried it in years.
  - andybak 5y ago
    I was under the impression that EPS didn't support the full Postscript language - merely the declarative parts. I could be wrong there.
nigeltao 5y ago
IconVG author here. Happy to discuss. Animation is issue #2 on https://github.com/google/iconvg https://github.com/google/iconvg and I have some ideas but no code yet. I'm also midway through changing the current "version 0" format into a "version 1" format, dropping things like the ArcTo op (inspired by SVG) precisely with one eye on (future) animation support. The ArcTo large-arc-flag, like any boolean-typed value, is impossible to interpolate smoothly.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pcwalton 5y ago
  IMO as long as animation isn't tied to After Effects like Lottie is, you can't go wrong. The fact that the most popular open vector animation format is tied to an expensive, proprietary piece of software that isn't even primarily a vector art package makes me very sad…
  - FractalHQ 5y ago
    Not to mention After Effects is an extremely poorly performing and highly bloated piece of software tied to mountains of spyware… It’s almost impressive how bad the software is by modern standards.
    - adamredwoods 5y ago
      I find After Effects to be one of the most impressive pieces of creative software ever made. An entire industry had been built around it. That said, there is plenty to improve upon.
    - jawngee 5y ago
      In no universe could After Effects even be remotely considered bad software.
jabbany 5y ago
Franky somebody should do like a TinyDF replacement for pdf... That's also a somewhat bloated format at this point. Ideally though, the tiny* formats should be forward compatible (?) and interpretable as a valid non-Tiny* document. That would be quite nice for wider adoption (like JSON).
- niutech 5y ago
  For PDF there are OpenXPS and DjVu.
- tdeck 5y ago
  "somewhat bloated" is the understatement of the century. PDF documents can contain executable code in two different programming languages (JavaScript and PostScript), interactive content, digital signatures, their own form of encryption, and more. Why they thought adding JavaScript to an already infamous attack vector of a format is beyond my understanding.
  - layer8 5y ago
    Javascript was added to PDF in order to implement interactive and dynamic forms, including input validation and normalization and dynamically adding/removing form elements based on user interaction. The contents of forms can also be directly submitted to a server. Basically, Adobe didn’t want HTML forms to steal their show, so they implemented the equivalent with PDF. Not saying that was a good idea, but here you go.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - ygra 5y ago
    PDF can contain executable PostScript? That was new to me. I know the syntax is still PostScript, but without the programming language. Is there a nice description somewhere?
    - 5y ago
justinclift 5y ago
> Lottie has already displaced SVG for animation/motion graphics ... Looking at the website, it seems like the file format is OSS but the creation side of things is proprietary?
- hobofan 5y ago
  Ongoing thread about Lottie, which also highlights some OSS options for creating Lottie files: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29634114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29634114

dosshell 5y ago

I have heard very good words about the eps format from a vector-format nerd (he reads file format specifikation books because its fun). I would love to here more opinions about eps from other developers. How does eps really compare with the other formats mentioned above?

andybak 5y ago
I've been avoiding EPS like the plague for several decades. Unless something has changed since I last looked it would be well below SVG on my preferred format list.
IshKebab 5y ago
I can't imagine those good words ever came from anyone that has actually used it.
heleninboodler 5y ago
EPS is just PostScript that's designed to be more embeddable. It's a PostScript program that contains some metadata like a preview image (so you can display a thumbnail when embedding it even if you don't have a PS interpreter) and a bounding box (since PS has an arbitrary coordinate system, in order to represent an embedded document without actually interpreting it, you need to know the bounds of what it's going to draw). The big problem with PS, EPS and Flash as simple graphics formats is that they're all turing complete and you can author documents that will never terminate. When importing EPS, Illustrator used to have a timeout and would fail if the render didn't complete in a couple minutes. I assume it still does, but haven't tried it in years.
- andybak 5y ago
  I was under the impression that EPS didn't support the full Postscript language - merely the declarative parts. I could be wrong there.

nigeltao 5y ago

IconVG author here. Happy to discuss. Animation is issue #2 on https://github.com/google/iconvg https://github.com/google/iconvg and I have some ideas but no code yet. I'm also midway through changing the current "version 0" format into a "version 1" format, dropping things like the ArcTo op (inspired by SVG) precisely with one eye on (future) animation support. The ArcTo large-arc-flag, like any boolean-typed value, is impossible to interpolate smoothly.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pcwalton 5y ago
IMO as long as animation isn't tied to After Effects like Lottie is, you can't go wrong. The fact that the most popular open vector animation format is tied to an expensive, proprietary piece of software that isn't even primarily a vector art package makes me very sad…
- FractalHQ 5y ago
  Not to mention After Effects is an extremely poorly performing and highly bloated piece of software tied to mountains of spyware… It’s almost impressive how bad the software is by modern standards.
  - adamredwoods 5y ago
    I find After Effects to be one of the most impressive pieces of creative software ever made. An entire industry had been built around it. That said, there is plenty to improve upon.
  - jawngee 5y ago
    In no universe could After Effects even be remotely considered bad software.

jabbany 5y ago

Franky somebody should do like a TinyDF replacement for pdf... That's also a somewhat bloated format at this point. Ideally though, the tiny* formats should be forward compatible (?) and interpretable as a valid non-Tiny* document. That would be quite nice for wider adoption (like JSON).

niutech 5y ago
For PDF there are OpenXPS and DjVu.
tdeck 5y ago
"somewhat bloated" is the understatement of the century. PDF documents can contain executable code in two different programming languages (JavaScript and PostScript), interactive content, digital signatures, their own form of encryption, and more. Why they thought adding JavaScript to an already infamous attack vector of a format is beyond my understanding.
- layer8 5y ago
  Javascript was added to PDF in order to implement interactive and dynamic forms, including input validation and normalization and dynamically adding/removing form elements based on user interaction. The contents of forms can also be directly submitted to a server. Basically, Adobe didn’t want HTML forms to steal their show, so they implemented the equivalent with PDF. Not saying that was a good idea, but here you go.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- ygra 5y ago
  PDF can contain executable PostScript? That was new to me. I know the syntax is still PostScript, but without the programming language. Is there a nice description somewhere?
  - 5y ago

justinclift 5y ago

> Lottie has already displaced SVG for animation/motion graphics ... Looking at the website, it seems like the file format is OSS but the creation side of things is proprietary?

hobofan 5y ago
Ongoing thread about Lottie, which also highlights some OSS options for creating Lottie files: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29634114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29634114