Nobody has mentioned the abandonment of SVG 1.2 as a factor. It was dropped by the W3C and never implemented in any browsers. This not only stalled improvements to SVG 1.1 but created a situation where the editing software (e.g. Inkscape) allows the user to create files using SVG 1.2 features which are invalid in SVG 1.1.<p>The abandonment has resulted in much-needed improvements to SVG being delayed. The last full release of SVG was 1.1 which was in 2003, we won't see another full release until SVG 2 which is expected in 2014, over a decade later!<p>Never mind the fact the browser implementations of SVG are still <i>riddled</i> with bugs and none are complete.
A vector format is insufficient to make an image look good at all resolutions. Without hinting, lines are not aligned to pixels, making them blurry.<p>We have solved this problem with fonts, but it is extremely complex, both for the artist and for the rendering code.
I use SVG a lot and I'd say the reasons are:<p>* Browser support is still new and in places still a little rough<p>* IE support has only recently arrived<p>* SVG creation tools are either rough or expensive<p>* SVG can create sub-Flash-like performance if used carelessly<p>* SVG has no detail optimisation (or detail hinting)<p>I think we're about to see SVG usage pick-up steam now that IE has support and retina displays are becoming commonplace. Hopefully we'll get the tools and performance we deserve.<p>I'm very hopeful for SVG in the next 18 months.
I guess Wikipedia's approach is a fairly good one here: Use SVG behind the scenes and generate PNGs for the articles themselves in the necessary sizes. Fast display of PNGs (also for complex imagery they tend to be smaller, but that's often just because Inkscape's default SVGs are horribly bloated¹) and the vector image for easy changes and printing.<p>That being said, back then I struggled fairly often with annoying bugs in Wikimedia's backend renderer rsvg. It got better over time but back then browser support was also very spotty. By now SVG is still my favorite vector format to use, mainly because it's trivial to write scripts around (it's just XML after all) and converting to PNG if you need it (or whatever else is needed) is trivial.²<p>So generally I'd say SVG is very much not dead, it's just rarely used <i>directly</i> on the web, except for interactive things where hit-testing arbitrary shapes is important.<p>____<p>¹ I used to vectorize a few (around 200–300, I think) flags on Wikimedia Commons and for simple shapes I concentrated on it was usually a difference of 350 bytes vs. 2–3 KiB. I wrote my code by hand for the most part, utilizing a few templates for common flag formats (<i>n</i> horizontal or vertical stripes, checkerboard, etc.) and small scripts for the more annoying things to write by hand, like wavy lines.<p>² Current use case from today: action bar icons on Android. When creating them in Eclipse from an image it only generates enabled, not disabled icons and I have to remember what padding I used and select the correct theme. After two or three changes in the source images (which were SVG anyway) it was enough and I just wrote a tiny script to generate them. Another use case were the images in my final thesis which I kept in SVG because back then I wasn't sure yet whether to use Word (needs EMF) or LaTeX (needs PDF) for writing. The fact that I needed Graphviz a lot which outputs nice, clean SVG also helped.
Re: the author's experience with Android: Android 2.x doesn't support SVG. It makes up 33% of the devices that visit the Google Play store<p><a href="http://caniuse.com/#cats=SVG" rel="nofollow">http://caniuse.com/#cats=SVG</a><p><a href="http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html</a>
Because parsing XML can become a bottomless pit of nightmares and sorrow. Unholy floating point calculations that make Baby Jesus cry.<p>Meanwhile, pixel rasters are a finite array of bytes, confined to specific dimensions and resolutions. Plain old integers in 24 bit color with an 8 bit transparency channel.<p>And, specifically with respect to PNG, those pixel values are compressed row-by-row, using the DEFLATE algorithm.
I'm surprised file size hasn't been mentioned as a mother major reason.<p>With tools like ImageOptim, and ImageAlpha, you can make PNGs INSANELY small with 0 or an imperceptible loss in quality.<p>For example, PNGs do insanely well when you have few numbers of colors that are repeating often. I've had had images that were 640px by 960px (pixel style art) that compressed down to sub 3kb with no quality loss. Good luck getting that with an SVG.<p>(Yes, there are certain types of images that PNGs are a terrible solution for, however, really, what I mean here is, right tool for the job.)
Answer: because there are plenty of things you simply can't express in SVG with its current level of support across browsers.<p>e.g. no blend mode except "normal" really works reliably across browsers yet. And just a reminder: it's 2013, everyone.<p>Next question...
The responses here (so far) are mostly pointing out why SVG is not suitable for <i>all</i> situations. There are many images where<p>- SVG will be smaller than a bitmap<p>- The sub-pixel rendering isn't really an issue (do you check that all the lines are aligned on pixels when you export something from illustrator?)<p>- No advanced/poorly supported features are necessary<p>Platform support is still a stumbling block, but that will get better. I seriously considered going svg-only for the vector-friendly illustrations in the new edition of <a href="http://eloquentjavascript.net" rel="nofollow">http://eloquentjavascript.net</a> . But in order to not screw over people on old devices, I will probably use svg with png fallbacks instead.
I think SVGs have failed so far on the web because of a sort of "paradox of choice": As soon as you use SVG images, you'll be tempted to make them do things you can't do with PNGs, but you still end up in a world of hurt if you attempt to do this.<p>Chiefly among these new features are (1) inlining directly into html (2) making them interactive via javascript.<p>Both #1 and #2 are possible in theory, but in my experience these features are very painful practice... both of these are still very buggy. That's the problem with SVGs: Most of the new "options" they open up are still not ready for prime time.
I would say the main reason is because there's not a 'Save As SVG' in photoshop. Most non tech people haven't heard of SVG and by the time they have, they already have a process for making images and the switch doesn't have enough apparent value on the surface.
Exporting a bitmap is easy, and will always look correct when rendered.<p>Exporting SVG is difficult, requires specific tools, and is gonna render differently depending on the browser.<p>SVG solved a problem exactly no one had.
1) Different browsers can render SVG pretty differently, especially where two regions are within a pixel of one another. If you have a blue rect next to a red rect with a yellow background, some browsers will render the middle line purple, some green, some orange, and some brown.<p>2) Pixel choices by vector renderers are generally dramatically worse than a human artist's choices. We don't want accuracy, we want perceptual emphasis. Look at NES Mario in your head, then look at the blur you'd get if you took a modern hi-res Mario and vector rendered it at that size. For icons, this can be murder.<p>3) IE <= 8 is still a pretty significant chunk of your viewers.<p>4) There's a lot of knowledge built up around how to work with pixel images, especially when sprite sheeting for performance. Much of that knowledge needs to be re-learned for vector. Even when it's a good idea, many developers feel they don't have the time for a knowledge overhaul.<p>5) A big chunk of the web is legacy sites. This is why you still see javascript in html comments, or the occasional isindex. They aren't getting updated, pretty much ever.<p>6) For visually complex sites, SVG can still drag on budget and older mobile devices.<p>7) Older android had SVG turned off in Chrome.<p>8) It's a lot harder to get vector artists than pixel artists; it's a lot harder for artists to give developers SVG than pixel images.<p>9) Because it isn't trendy yet.
Because most of the images out there are in pixel and not vector format. Converting the latter to the former automatically doesn't always produce the desired results.<p>At <a href="https://starthq.com" rel="nofollow">https://starthq.com</a> we do use SVG for the logo and all icons. Falling back to PNG for older browsers requires a CSS hack though and that fails on some older mobile devices.
I used SVG to make some interactive demos of some methods for solving ordinary differential equations. At the time, I remember being frustrated by the poor documentation available for the scripting aspects.<p>Naturally, there are a number of web resources, but none of them felt authoritative (in the sense of complete coverage). Furthermore, they used different techniques, so it was hard to integrate code samples from different sources. Finally, some had outright errors (my vague memory is that some of this was due to the documentation being written before a working implementation was available).<p>All of this had the effect of making me feel like SVG was a bit of a backwater. I liked the technology, and was willing to use it since I had total control of the machine I was going to run the demo on. However, I didn't feel comfortable with the idea that I could make the demos public and have them run anywhere.
"Why have SVG images not yet replaced PNG on the web?"<p>I'm an artist who's been using Adobe Illustrator as her primary medium for thirteen years. Here's some reasons why my site is still serving up tons of bitmap images:<p>- Any interesting vector image will be a much larger file as an svg than a web-res png/gif/jpg.<p>- Sophisticated effects in AI can get lost in the transition to SVG. I don't know if this is AI's fault, SVG's lack of support, or the fault of the various things rendering the SVG, and the first point leaves me disinterested in experimenting.<p>That said, I <i>have</i> been playing with using web fonts for sets of simple images.<p>Also, most of my artist friends are completely baffled by AI; they prefer bitmap programs like Photoshop, Sai, or Artrage.
The SVG spec has been around for so long, but the fact that it competed directly with SWF held it back. Adobe was a major proponent of SVG until they bought Flash and focused their efforts accordingly.<p>Although SVG is "readable" in a text editor, all but the simplest shapes are extremely complex and require the use of graphics editors such as Inkscape. Vector formats are definitely the future for source images as they can generate any size bitmap you need for any device. However, as a delivery format, SVG will likely be relegated to niche and specialized sites (e.g. data visualizations and animations) for quite a while.
Because browser support is inconsistent, SVGs are often larger than equivalent than even lightly optimized PNGs, and it's a lot easier to find or create raster images than to obtain high-quality vector art. Also, you actually often want different images at different scales, so that automatically scaling one image is not that big an advantage.<p>I want to use SVG, particularly in Javascript apps. It seems like a more elegant solution/workflow for things like icons. It would certainly beat abusing fonts to put small images on a page. but it has sort of missed its opportunity.
Let's not forget the issue that scaling vectors does not necessarily mean scaling intent and communication. Vector imagery for some things sounds great; in practice, it doesn't always come out as well as you'd hope--and certainly not as well as a hand-optimized set of work.<p>See: <a href="http://www.pushing-pixels.org/2011/11/04/about-those-vector-icons.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.pushing-pixels.org/2011/11/04/about-those-vector-...</a>
We use SVG on our homepage via raphaeljs to draw the graphics showing marketing, phone calls, metrics, and insights... It was always my goal to one day animate it to help better explain our product, but for now I think it looks pretty good and the PNG version was larger in bytes when converted... the example is here: <a href="https://calltrackingmetrics.com/features" rel="nofollow">https://calltrackingmetrics.com/features</a>
I think that the web is slowly starting to adopt SVGs where it makes sense.<p>d3.js is bringing svg charting to the web in a major way. Most, if not all, modern web dashboards are using it.<p>Google Maps has been using SVG icons for custom markers for awhile, embedded into their json configuration. This may not be strictly 'the web', but it is a major component of online GIS applications.
Because IE 8 doesn't support SVGs and still accounts for >20% of desktop traffic (by some reports). Likewise, Android 2.x doesn't support SVGs and accounts for some non-ignorable amount of mobile traffic.<p>Where I currently work we can't support SVGs with some projects due to a bug in the middleware we're mandated to use.
It's pretty simple. People in charge of corporate logos want COMPLETE CONTROL over how they look. If a rendering engine can mess it up, they're not going to use it. Thus PNGs. What you put into a PNG is what you get out. Not so with SVG.
Because they are completely different image formats for completely different purposes! I'm so tired of these articles. PNG vs JPG, Animated GIF vs video, Flash vs HTML5. These things have barely anything in common!
Because people haven't caught on yet. Browsers will start to support it and it will catch on once people realize its vast benefits over PNG. For now, it's not worth it for people to switch.
>>as PNGs are just plain bitmaps<< .png is definitely not a plain bitmap.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics#Compression" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics#Compr...</a>