Chapter 11 : Drawing in the Browser
As part of your web application, you may wish to dynamically render a chart, graph, or other visual representation of live data. Of course, you could send your data to the server and have it generate the required images, but why go to all that trouble when you can have the browser do the drawing? Methods are available to allow you to render graphic elements within current browsers by using entirely front-end code.
This chapter introduces two separate technologies available in today’s browsers that make it possible to draw vector graphics in your browser: Scalable Vector Graphics and Vector Markup Language. We’ll also look at a third-party cross-browser component that will allow you to draw charts, graphs, and other graphics within your own RIAs using either technology, as appropriate. Finally, you’ll learn about a new HTML 5 tag for rendering graphics on your pages.