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Batik SVG-to-PNG server revisited

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hk.kng at web

Aug 12, 2009, 4:19 PM

Post #1 of 8 (1017 views)
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Batik SVG-to-PNG server revisited

Helder Geovane kindly asked me to post this here, after I published a comment at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:SVG_image_support#Batik_server_revisited

This started out when a colleague posted a proposal on strategy wiki of throwing
some foundation money at the active development of rsvg. I wanted to counter
this with an old question: why not use Batik instead? The decision for rsvg in
2006 was based on the asumption that a Java application was a bad idea due to
overhead. At this time, a user proposed a http Server app based on Simple
(http://www.simplframework.org). He published a demonstration version
(http://batikd.sourceforge.net/), but noone reacted, and his work stopped. Now I
have taken a look at his approach, and I find the results are not that bad, for
an early development stage: in most cases, the batikd rendering times are two or
three times those of rsvg, and in some specialized cases (extensive use of
filters), batikd is even faster.

I would say, like rsvg improvements, a Batik server for a production environment
would need considerable work, and I am frankly not qualified to do it. So,
regarding the funding proposal my position is to say that there are multiple
avenues to get better SVG support. (I have seen the comments about svgweb,
another project that seems to need work before it is usable.)

This post here is only meant as an encouragement if someone who knows more about
server development than I do would like to take a deeper look.

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gmaxwell at gmail

Aug 12, 2009, 6:41 PM

Post #2 of 8 (958 views)
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Re: Batik SVG-to-PNG server revisited [In reply to]

On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 7:19 PM, hk_kng<hk.kng [at] web> wrote:
> Helder Geovane kindly asked me to post this here, after I published a comment at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:SVG_image_support#Batik_server_revisited
>
> This started out when a colleague posted a proposal on strategy wiki of throwing
> some foundation money at the active development of rsvg. I wanted to counter
> this with an old question: why not use Batik instead? The decision for rsvg in
> 2006 was based on the asumption that a Java application was a bad idea due to
> overhead. At this time, a user proposed a http Server app based on Simple
> (http://www.simplframework.org). He published a demonstration version
> (http://batikd.sourceforge.net/), but noone reacted, and his work stopped. Now I
> have taken a look at his approach, and I find the results are not that bad, for
> an early development stage: in most cases, the batikd rendering times are two or
> three times those of rsvg, and in some specialized cases (extensive use of
> filters), batikd is even faster.

I published some batch-batik performance numbers back when this was
discussed. It wasn't too appealing.

I still hold the position that if we were to use anything other than
rsvg it should be inkscape, since at least then users could have a
hope of some degree of bug-compatibility WYSIWYG. ;) (and inkscapes
performance is attractive... and at least all the crash bugs I
reported were fixed :) )

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dgerard at gmail

Aug 13, 2009, 2:06 AM

Post #3 of 8 (956 views)
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Re: Batik SVG-to-PNG server revisited [In reply to]

2009/8/13 Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell [at] gmail>:
> On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 7:19 PM, hk_kng<hk.kng [at] web> wrote:

>> Helder Geovane kindly asked me to post this here, after I published a comment at
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:SVG_image_support#Batik_server_revisited
>> This started out when a colleague posted a proposal on strategy wiki of throwing
>> some foundation money at the active development of rsvg. I wanted to counter
>> this with an old question: why not use Batik instead? The decision for rsvg in
>> 2006 was based on the asumption that a Java application was a bad idea due to
>> overhead. At this time, a user proposed a http Server app based on Simple
>> (http://www.simplframework.org). He published a demonstration version
>> (http://batikd.sourceforge.net/), but noone reacted, and his work stopped. Now I
>> have taken a look at his approach, and I find the results are not that bad, for
>> an early development stage: in most cases, the batikd rendering times are two or
>> three times those of rsvg, and in some specialized cases (extensive use of
>> filters), batikd is even faster.

> I published some batch-batik performance numbers back when this was
> discussed. It wasn't too appealing.

I did some a year and a half ago, they should really be redone:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/SVG_benchmarks

> I still hold the position that if we were to use anything other than
> rsvg it should be inkscape, since at least then users could have a
> hope of some degree of bug-compatibility WYSIWYG. ;) (and inkscapes
> performance is attractive... and at least all the crash bugs I
> reported were fixed :) )

Yuh. My tests it came out very slow, and not a good idea unless you're
running Windows (since it comes in a standalone package) - but others
have suggested that could be starting it afresh every time - if it
could run from the command line with a single instance, it could be a
bit faster, I don't know.

- d.

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hk.kng at web

Aug 13, 2009, 10:10 AM

Post #4 of 8 (954 views)
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Re: Batik SVG-to-PNG server revisited [In reply to]

David Gerard <dgerard <at> gmail.com> writes:

>
> I did some a year and a half ago, they should really be redone:
>
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/SVG_benchmarks
>
I knew I had seen the tests somewhere. I'll be running the files with batikd,
and post the results. Due to time restraints, this will have to wait until the
weekend.

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hk.kng at web

Aug 16, 2009, 5:00 PM

Post #5 of 8 (909 views)
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Re: Batik SVG-to-PNG server revisited [In reply to]

New test results were added at
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/SVG_benchmarks

This looks even better than my first attempt. Nonetheless, it is clear
that batikd is not ready to use but needs to be worked on.

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gmaxwell at gmail

Aug 16, 2009, 5:14 PM

Post #6 of 8 (911 views)
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Re: Batik SVG-to-PNG server revisited [In reply to]

On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 8:00 PM, Hk kng<hk.kng [at] web> wrote:
> New test results were added at
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/SVG_benchmarks
>
> This looks even better than my first attempt. Nonetheless, it is clear
> that batikd is not ready to use but needs to be worked on.

I'm not sure where the notion came up that median performance was a
useful criteria for selecting a rendering engine.

I'd expect that the criteria would be something like this:
0. security comfort (i.e. ability to deny local file access, strength
against overflow exploits)
1. worst case memory usage vs average
2. worst case cpu consumption vs average
3. Least surprising rendered output
4. average cpu consumption

Batik probably wins on 0, Inkscape wins on 3 (being bug compatible
with something the user can operate at home is arguably superior to
being correct), rsvg wins on 1,2,4 (and maybe daemonized batik is
getting close on 4).

Sometimes the CPU comparisons can be a bit hard... a rendering engine
which doesn't support SVG filters (i.e. old rsvg) will likely be
faster, but it will be producing unexpected output.

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dgerard at gmail

Aug 17, 2009, 1:17 AM

Post #7 of 8 (904 views)
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Re: Batik SVG-to-PNG server revisited [In reply to]

2009/8/17 Hk kng <hk.kng [at] web>:

> New test results were added at
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/SVG_benchmarks
> This looks even better than my first attempt. Nonetheless, it is clear
> that batikd is not ready to use but needs to be worked on.

Nice one!

Has anyone set up Inkscape so it doesn't have to be set up/torn down
for each image? (Is this even possible?)

- d.

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hk.kng at web

Aug 25, 2009, 11:16 AM

Post #8 of 8 (783 views)
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Re: Batik SVG-to-PNG server revisited [In reply to]

David Gerard <dgerard <at> gmail.com> writes:

>
> Has anyone set up Inkscape so it doesn't have to be set up/torn down
> for each image? (Is this even possible?)
>
> - d.
>
The next version 0.47 will have something. See
https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/259303

Hk kng

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