Category:SVG simplification by avoidance

This pseudo-category is in fact a document explaining a technique to optimize and―in a sense―simplify SVG files. The files in this category merely constitute a collection of examples illustrating that technique. These hidden categories are only intended for Wikimedia contributors who want to add or optimize SVG files, but the documented techniques are in no way specific to Wikimedia. Besides being scalable, the images represented by the files in this category have nothing in common (only the files have historical implementation details in common). Most of these documents are in a poor state, as of October 2024, and the effect of some of these so-called simplification techniques would be considered as complexification by most. To address these issues, see discussion about an action plan.

Files generated by SVG editors are often filled with large parts of dead code which can be stripped without any influence on the graphic.

For example, a file of over 208 kB generated by Inkscape contained more than 98% mere garbage. It contained useless code like the following:

• style="opacity:0.81153845999999985; 17 decimal fractions - but fill-opacity and stroke-opacity are defined later as fill:#000000;fill-opacity:0; it is invisible! (why not 0.00000000000000000 ?)
• stroke:#000000;stroke-width:1.70000005000000010;stroke-miterlimit:4;stroke-opacity:0.01339286; - practically invisible
• stroke-dasharray:none;stroke-dashoffset:7.79999999999999980; an offset with 17 decimal places for an invisible none dasharray

One particularly convincing example is South Azerbaijan red flag.svg, a simple rectangle, whose initial version (generated by Inkscape) consumed a thousand times more storage space.

The following section is unclear. It is being discussed on the discussion page.

As another example, the first fill of the rectangle with <path fill="#C31A3E" d="m0,0h126v84H0"/> can be avoided with <circle fill="#C31A3E" r="160"/>.
The radius should be ${\displaystyle {\sqrt {width^{2}+height^{2}}}}$. The mentioned file had been deleted, an example for using this method is shown in F1 yellow flag with red stripes.svg.