SVG stands for Scalable Vector Graphics. It is an XML language for sophisticated 2-dimensional graphics and is similar in scope to Macromedia's proprietary Flash technology: among other things it offers anti-aliased rendering, pattern and gradient fills, sophisticated filter-effects, clipping to arbitrary paths, text and animations. SVG is distinguished from Flash by a W3 recommendation (i.e. a standard for all intents and purposes) and by its XML-base as opposed to a closed binary format. It is explicitly designed to work with other W3C standards such as CSS, DOM and SMIL.

Troubleshooting

The Adobe SVG Viewer is an external plugin that lets you see graphics created using SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). It is available free of charge from Adobe. It also comes with Acrobat Reader, version 5. If this version is installed on your computer, you should be able to display SVG graphics. If you do not have Acrobat Reader 5.0, download the Adobe SVG Viewer.