Commons:Graphics village pump/April 2013

Illustrator CS6 SVG formatting options: is there a Wikimedia "Standards & Practices" guide?

I put "Standards & Practices" there (and again here) in quotes because I do not mean it in the sense of television moralization but rather in the sense of "a set of standardized guidelines which graphics uploaders can follow to facilitate greater compatibility across browsers and to create consistent viewer expectations when viewing graphics files". Which I just made up. But it sounds nice, no?

Anyhow, my concern is this: with Illustrator CS6, when I save an image in SVG format (from AI format) I am confronted with a host of options about which I know relatively little. I have not been able to find any guides on Wikimedia that tell me which ones I should use (and for which kinds of files, e.g., photos vs. diagrams). Am I missing something?

These are the options:

SVG Profiles: SVG 1.0, SVG 1.1, SVG Tiny 1.1, Svg Tiny 1.1+, SVG Basic 1.1, and SVG Tiny 1.2. I already think I understand that we should always use SVG 1.1 as 1.0 is archaic and the various "tiny" options are for mobile devices, of which only a very few can even read these formats. This options seems fairly simple.

Fonts:

• Type: Adobe CEF, SVG, Outline
• Subsetting (only available for CEF and SVG): There are a bunch of options here, mostly revolving around combinations of the terms 1. Glyphs, 2. Common English, 3. Common Roman, and (all by itself) 4. None - Use system fonts

Options:

• Image Location: Embed vs. Link, check-box for Preserve Illustrator editing capability

Advanced Options:

• CSS Properties: Drop down menu with the following: Presentation Attributes, Style Attributes, Style Attributes (Entity References), and Style Elements

• Decimal places: 1-7 (I understand that the default setting is 3 and that this is a good option 95% of the time-- for very complicated files dropping it to 1 or even zero can reduce the file size substantially, although at a loss of bezier segment detail/ curvature)

• Encoding: Options are ISO 8859-1, Unicode (UTF-8), and Unicode (UTF-16)

• Check boxes: the Advanced Options menu ends with five check boxes for the following: Optimize for Adobe SVG Viewer, Output fewer <tspan> elements, Include Slicing Data, Use <textPath> element for Text on Path,and Include XMP (this last one only becomes available if Unicode (UTF-8) has been selected in the previous menu).

As I have already said, I think I know the optimal settings for most of the images I am uploading, but is there somewhere a written-up guide for creating SVG files in Illustrator CS6 for Wikimedia that covers these things? Please advise. And if there isn't, please advise further. Thank you. KDS444 (talk) 11:07, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't see your question before. I don't use Illustrator myself, but one thing right off, do not choose UTF-16 format, as this creates larger files and causes compatibility problems for no advantage on Wikimedia Commons. Sometimes Illustrator overwhelms a small amount of vector data with a huge amount of binary data which is of no use other than to Illustrator itself (compare the filesizes on File:Extasy_logo.svg). Not sure what save options control this, but I probably wouldn't select "Preserve Illustrator editing capability" or "Include XMP"... AnonMoos (talk) 04:39, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Stitching maps together

The maps (West to East)

• File:Borinage SNCV.png
• File:Hainaut centre SNCV names.png
• File:Charleroi SNCV SNCB maximum extend.png

are made on exactly the same scale, line colouring and match (East West) exactly. (They are however not the same heigth) My intention was to join them together. However photoshop software refuses to work without some common merge area.

Could someone to this? Then I can reorganize the insets and fill in the missing railway lines (areas not covered by the submaps). (Or put arrows on the missing lines)

The same can be done for the maps with Openstreet background, but this is less important. Readers can always use the submaps for precise location. The joined maps are for a an overview of the SNCV network.

• File:Borinage SNCV openstreetmap.png
• File:Hainaut centre SNCV openstreetmap.png
• File:Charleroi SNCV-SNCB openstreetmap background.png

The source files are photoshop files with several separate layers. From there maps are exported and uploaded to the commons. Unfortunately photoshop files are not allowed on the commons. This would be very useful if some information has to changed. Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:30, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

A good gis-book

Does someone know a good Gis-book? One that tells it all you need to know in order to create maps for wikimedia and wikipedia. I have been searching in vain. Citypeek (talk) 04:53, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Could ask at Commons:Graphic_Lab/Map_workshop... -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:37, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

SVG file loses proportions when displayed as PNG

Hello all. I just uploaded File:First angle projection symbol.svg and File:Third angle projection symbol.svg, which look rather poor when rendered as a PNG; the originals - visible as Media:First angle projection symbol.svg and Media:Third angle projection symbol.svg look much better.

The main problem lies in the two dashed lines, which in technical drawing terms, are "long chain lines" used to indicate a centre line. I carefully set the styling of those as stroke-dasharray="35 5 5 5" stroke-dashoffset="17.5" (more information at this W3C page), so that two of the longer (35px) dashes would cross at the centre of the circles. Unfortunately, the PNG conversion has lost both the proportions and the balance - the lines and spaces are now of equal length, and there is no crossing at the centre.

How can I fix these images so that the dashed lines retain their intended styling when converted to PNG? --Redrose64 (talk; at English Wikipedia) 16:09, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

The Wikimedia "RSVG" software doesn't like having the values be separated by spaces, that's all. By the way, the "Media:" links mean that the SVG file is rendered by a program on your own computer, and which program this is will be different for different people (depending on how their systems are configured). AnonMoos (talk) 16:22, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

 Thank you. I see that you've already uploaded replacements. --Redrose64 (talk; at English Wikipedia) 16:44, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

SVG and text

Hello, when I upload SVG files to Commons, the text often moves, so I have to reposition it on Inskcape, and then to upload the new version. I don't know why it happens, and I could not find any information about the problem. Today i uploaded a new file (Media:Intercommunalités Mayenne.svg), and the text was completely messy on Commons. I tried different things, such as changing fonts and saving the document as plain SVG, but it got worse and worse... If anybody could help, I would be really grateful. Oie blanche (talk) 18:22, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

As with #What did I do to this SVG file? above, you're using an unrecognised font - specifically, font-family:Arial; --Redrose64 (talk; at English Wikipedia) 20:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Try converting the text to paths. Decreases editability, but guarentees correct typographical display.—Kelvinsong (talk) 21:21, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Oie blanche -- you can try downloading and installing on your own computer some of the fonts on the server here, such as "Bitstream Vera Sans" or "DejaVu Sans", and theoretically you could see the same thing in your vector editor as in RSVG-generated PNG files here on Commons (though it doesn't always work in practice). You can also preview files without uploading at Commons:SVG Check. The last resort is to convert text to paths... AnonMoos (talk) 09:00, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I converted text to paths and it worked. Tank you very much! Oie blanche (talk) 06:30, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Improving quality

Hello all. How could I improve quality of this file I uploaded? It always looks bad when I use it in thumbnail mode.--Avocato (talk) 23:13, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

This file has no vector data content - only raster grafics. --maxxl2 - talk 08:40, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. What should I do then?--Avocato (talk) 18:32, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Either upload the PNG embedded in the SVG file as a real PNG (with filename ending in".png"), or combine your mainly-vector sources in a way that yields a vector result (how to do this will depend on the software that you use). AnonMoos (talk) 22:14, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

 Done File:Egyptian law icon 2.png.--Avocato (talk) 22:26, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Stripey corrupt thumbnails bug

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T26854

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T43130

File:NorbBlei AlJohnson.jpg's thumbnails are messed up.

Help:JPEG does mention something about ImageMagick getting somehow confused by CMYK JPGs, but the bug in question was fixed, as the history of images in Category:Bug 24854 fixed temporarily shows.

Is this a rare relative? Are there other images affected by this? –⁠moogsi (blah) 11:35, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the bug is fixed for anyone whose browser doesn't handle CMYK images. I'll take a look at the image... AnonMoos (talk) 14:24, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Converted to RGB. AnonMoos (talk) 14:59, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Figured it out, these were thumbs generated by bugzilla:24854 that then got stuck because of bugzilla:41130. When you uploaded the new image, the thumbnail in the history was regenerated and now looks fine. This also explains why I'd not seen this before; seems like it has a pretty low chance of happening. Thanks –⁠moogsi (blah) 08:08, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Black rectangle appearing

Hi, I've got a problem File:Osiedla Białołęki.svg, when I was creating this graphic in Inkscape everything was fine, but after importing it to GIMP or uploading to Commons a black rectangle appears on the left side. Does anybody know what causes this and could fix it? Thanks in advance, Kubek15 (talk) 14:05, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Mysterious black rectangles in rendered SVG files are almost always due to Inkscape "flowtext" nonsense, as can be diagnosed at Commons:SVG Check. It may be almost impossible to remove a blank "flowed text" area using some versions of Inkscape. But you were lucky, in that the rectangle was behind the white text (usually it's in front of everything). AnonMoos (talk) 14:38, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Many thanks! I'm just beginning with SVG and it would have been a pity to waste time I spent making that ;-) Kubek15 (talk) 18:04, 28 April 2013 (UTC)