[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#10734) SVG flags

["Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa" <vasc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=10734 >

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004, Jason Short wrote:

>
> <URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=10734 >
>
> Oh, and one other reason: better flags!
>
> The attached images show the current Japanese flag, and a Japanese flag
> rendered from an SVG image.  The rendered flag looks better.  This is
> because curves can automatically be rendered using anti-aliasing.
>
> Oddly, the rendered image is also much smaller.  Perhaps it is
> automatically rendered with a small palette (while the original image
> has the "full" flags palette inherited from the old flags.png).
>
> This also shows a problem with using SVG however.  The current flags
> have a black border, which would not be present by default in SVG flags.
>   This can be handled either using runtime drawing or via some
> ImageMagick magic.

Like I said before, the largest issue with our current graphics is low
colour resolution. They were made to have a shared 64 colour palette for
*all* graphics: tile, unit, small, flags, etc. This is because Amiga
computers, the target of the graphics, had low colour resolutions back in
the day. While this is also true for some embedded devices, even those
had 256-colour graphics, with now most having 16-bit graphics minimum. I
would be in favour of having a minimum 16-bit colour resolution for the
default graphics and client (then the graphics could be 24-bit: 16-bit
produces a reasonable facsimile even without the benefit of dithering).

The artifacts you see in the original flag are purely due to the low
colour resolution, which produces aliasing.

Regarding the border, AFAIK SVG does indeed allow you to draw lines with
any thickness you wish, so this should be possible to make in the SVG drawing.
I would prefer this to be so, rather than requiring even more tools.
Besides, some clients may wish to render the SVG directly in the future.

---
Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa @ Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa