[tlug] Re: Editing the source XML of SVG

["Dimitar Dimitrov" <dimitar.dimitrov@example.com>]

Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 11:36:21 +0900 From: Dave M G < dave@example.com>
Subject: [tlug] Editing the source XML of SVG

Scale group with X and Y proportioned
Scale in X or Y separately
flip on vertical axis

See the example in the Nested Transformations chapter [1]. The  "flip" transformation is just  scaling with negative scale  (mirror image is scale with ratio of -1)

It would do you good to brush up on your Analytical Geometry and especially transformation matrices [2].
 

Refill colour on all group elements

It's a bit more complicated - read about painting props inheritance [3]

jitter slightly points in group

Just use _javascript_ to go over the DOM and add random values to the X and Y coordinates.

overlay SVG files onto one another

Try to think of SVG as a DOM tree and not as files. The composition is just a matter of inserting one SVG tree in a container element of another.
 

Outside of the very technical W3C
documentation, I'm not finding much in the way of user friendly tutorials.

Though the W3C specs are very technical, they are the reference source and I strongly recommend to make the effort to learn how to read them. Once you get used to the style, you'll find that they are well structured and easy to navigate. I also find the Document Map  [4] extension very useful for reading W3C docs.

Another useful resource is the ZVON SVG reference [5]. You might also want to check usenet (or Google Groups) for relevant newsgroups and browse the archives.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/coords.html#NestedTransformations
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_matrix
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/painting.html#InheritanceOfPaintingProperties 
[4] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/475
[5] http://www.zvon.org/xxl/svgReference/Output/index.html

cheers,
Dimitar