Rob Relyea: Xaml for 2D Graphics

Saveen Reddy: Visio exporter to Xaml Vectors

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:03:37 GMT

I was excited to see VisioExportToXaml on Codeplex from Saveen Reddy (with credits to Thierry Bouquain and SharpVectors).

Saveen blogs about it in "Updated Add-In for Visio 2007 to Export to Xaml"

Original Visio

XAML rendered in in Expression Blend

WPF/Silverlight: Using an ellipse as an opacity mask for another ellipse

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:24:01 GMT

Internal mail thread that is likely useful to people outside of Microsoft. Please read bottom up:

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From: Blend Program Manager
OpacityMask is a brush, clip is a geometry. They are both valid on Shapes but it depends on what type of masking you’re looking to do.

In the example of an elliptical mask, it could also be done with opacity mask and a radial gradient brush.

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From: MS Employee new to Xaml Vectors

Ah, so is Opacity Mask not valid for shapes? When do I need to use .CLIP instead of Opacity Mask? Anyway, I knew it would be easy. Thanks!

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From: Blend Program Manager

Real easy using Blend, just draw out two ellipses, select both then use Object->Path->Make Clipping Path.

Alternatively, the XAML is:

<Ellipse.Clip>

</Ellipse.Clip>

</Ellipse>

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From: MS Employee new to Xaml Vectors

Ok.. this has got to be SO simple, but I cant figure it out. I’m trying to use an object like an ellipse as an opacity mask for another ellipse. What is the syntax to make this work. It seems to be looking for a “Brush” but I thought it would use the nested ellipse as the necessary brush. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

<Ellipse.OpacityMask>

</Ellipse.OpacityMask>

</Ellipse>

More SVG & Xaml

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 22:23:18 GMT

Having-fun-with-xaml-silverlight-and.html. I've also created a new category on my blog: Xaml for 2D Graphics...I'll go back and recategorize a few posts into that category.

Tim Heuer: SVG or PDF -> Xaml vectors for Silverlight or WPF

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 10:28:49 GMT

Tim Heuer just posted an interesting screencast called "convert svg and vector to xaml with expression design for silverlight". I was interested to see his techniques for SVG to Xaml. Interestingly, he takes the SVG with a tool named InkScape to open SVG and save as PDF. He then renames the PDF to .ai (illustrator). File/Import with Expression Design now works. File/Export from there allows you to save as Silverlight Xaml or WPF Xaml.

He shows a few nice demos...a picture of Cartman from South Park and a diagram of seating sections at a baseball park. Worth a watch...you'll pick up more than my quick recap gives you.

Update: just ran into Andrej Benedik's update from a week ago: "Added Paste2Xaml application and Ab2d.ReaderWmf class library" which supports a number of interesting scenarios via SVG files, clipboard metafiles, etc...:

Robert Ingebretson: HandDrawnShapes

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 03:38:58 GMT

Just hunted this HandDrawnShapes sample down. Love the look this code gives your shapes...

I was looking for sketchy shapes, so it took me a while to find this. Eventually I just searched @ notstatic.com for shapes...

FAQ: svg and wpf/xaml

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 13:17:36 GMT

I just wrote up a short answer to the question of does WPF render SVG. To make it easy for me to find in the future, evolve based on feedback, and for others to benefit from it, I post it here:

Q: Does WPF/XAML support rendering SVG content?

No, WPF doesn’t natively render SVG content.
However, the WPF flavor of vector graphics, does have many similarities with SVG…making conversion tools fairly simple to write.

Q: Why isn't WPF just implementing SVG, etc...

This has been a much debated topic online ever since PDC 2003 (when we first widely showed "Avalon" off)

The summary goes something like this:

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), one of the key pillars of .Net Framework 3.0, is an integrated platform: UI (Controls), Media (2D, 3D, Animations, Video, Audio), and Documents (fixed documents with XPS, and flow documents as the http://nytimes.com/timesreader uses). As such, we needed to build a cohesive set of APIs that included a declarative representation (via XAML) that enabled many scenarios that involve several of those technologies.
We had a choice of stitching together many domain-specific technologies (svg, xhtml, smil, css, direct3d, etc…) or building the next Windows API as a great, consistent set of APIs across the breadth of UI, Media and Documents.
We believe that we have built an impressive platform for Windows developers.

Here are a few links that provide interesting reading and debate (not everything there is technically accurate, but most are worth reading)

Ian Griffiths - http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/view/cs_msg/34066
Joe Beda - http://www.eightypercent.net/Archive/2003/11/04.html#a153
Wesner Moise - http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2003/10/xaml_and_standa.html
SVG Forum discussion: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers/message/56732
SVG Forum discussion: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers/message/56860
SVG Wiki: http://wiki.svg.org/Vector_Format_Comparisons
Comment's on Joe Beda's blog: http://www.haloscan.com/comments.php?user=jbeda&comment=150#62415

Thoughts?