SVG charts rendered as PNG

Hi all, 
 
The charts in my report are set to use SVG output, but when I deploy and the application, they are displayed as PNG files in the web browser. 
 
When I export the report to PDF, one can also tell that the charts have been rendered as PNG, as the image loses quality as you zoom with a PDF viewer. 
 
I'm using BIRT runtime v2.3.2. 
 
This error was also reported by some users in a mailing list, but that was more than a year ago: <a class='bbc_url' href='http://dev.eclipse.org/newslists/news.eclipse.birt/msg25460.html'>[news.eclipse.birt] PNG is rendered instead of SVG charts in browser</a> 
 
Is that a bug with BIRT runtime ? If so, is it fixed ? 
How can I have the charts in my report rendered as SVG ? 
 
Thanks, 
Leonel

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Comments

mwilliams

Hi Leonel,

Did you enable SVG charts in your preferences?

PDF doesn't have an SVG format I don't believe, it is just an "image" to PDF. They will always look the same there.

mwilliams

Leonel,

Just realized you're using the viewer, not the designer. Is it just PDF that the image quality is lower? Are you getting the SVG images in your html output?

leonelag

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' >Are you getting the SVG images in your html output?</blockquote>
Yes. 
 
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' >Is it just PDF that the image quality is lower?</blockquote>
Yes. 
 
I have found out how to generate SVG files in the HTML output (use a parameter __svg=true. 
 
In the PDF the image quality is still low. I have worked with <a class='bbc_url' href='http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/'>Apache FOP</a> before, and the generated images are quite nice, so I guess there must be some way to insert vectorized images in a PDF output. How to do that in BIRT ?

leonelag

Finally, I've downloaded the source code for BIRT 2.3.2 to check how to do it. I've gone through it and ran it in a debugging session, to understand how it all works under the hood. 
 
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' >How can I have the charts in my report rendered as SVG ?</blockquote>
 
Quick answer, it's not possible in this version of BIRT. The reporting engine uses SVG when generating HTML pages, but ignores SVG when generating PDF files. 
 
I think I'll create a custom version of the reporting engine for my application, which allows for SVG images in PDF. I can say right now that it's not going to be easy.