Does SVG support embedding of bitmap images?

Yes, you can reference any image from the image element. And you can use data URIs to make the SVG self-contained. An example:

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
     xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">

    ...
    <image
        width="100" height="100"
        xlink:href="data:image/png;base64,IMAGE_DATA"
        />
    ...
</svg>

The svg element attribute xmlns:xlink declares xlink as a namespace prefix and says where the definition is. That then allows the SVG reader to know what xlink:href means.

The IMAGE_DATA is where you'd add the image data as base64-encoded text. Vector graphics editors that support SVG usually have an option for saving with images embedded. Otherwise there are plenty of tools around for encoding a byte stream to and from base64.

Here's a full example from the SVG testsuite.


You could use a Data URI to supply the image data, for example:

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">

<image width="20" height="20" xlink:href="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAUAAAAFCAYAAACNbyblAAAAHElEQVQI12P4//8/w38GIAXDIBKE0DHxgljNBAAO9TXL0Y4OHwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg=="/>

</svg>

The image will go through all normal svg transformations.

But this technique has disadvantages, for example the image will not be cached by the browser


You can use a data: URL to embed a Base64 encoded version of an image. But it's not very efficient and wouldn't recommend embedding large images. Any reason linking to another file is not feasible?


I posted a fiddle here, showing data, remote and local images embedded in SVG, inside an HTML page:

http://jsfiddle.net/MxHPq/

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>SVG embedded bitmaps in HTML</title>
    <style>

        body{
            background-color:#999;
            color:#666;
            padding:10px;
        }

        h1{
            font-weight:normal;
            font-size:24px;
            margin-top:20px;
            color:#000;
        }

        h2{
            font-weight:normal;
            font-size:20px;
            margin-top:20px;
        }

        p{
            color:#FFF;
            }

        svg{
            margin:20px;
            display:block;
            height:100px;
        }

    </style>
</head>

<body>
    <h1>SVG embedded bitmaps in HTML</h1>
    <p>The trick appears to be ensuring the image has the correct width and height atttributes</p>

    <h2>Example 1: Embedded data</h2>
    <svg id="example1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
        <image x="0" y="0" width="5" height="5" xlink:href="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAUAAAAFCAYAAACNbyblAAAAHElEQVQI12P4//8/w38GIAXDIBKE0DHxgljNBAAO9TXL0Y4OHwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg=="/>
    </svg>

    <h2>Example 2: Remote image</h2>
    <svg id="example2" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
        <image x="0" y="0" width="275" height="95" xlink:href="http://www.google.co.uk/images/srpr/logo3w.png" />
    </svg>

    <h2>Example 3: Local image</h2>
    <svg id="example3" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
        <image x="0" y="0" width="136" height="23" xlink:href="/img/logo.png" />
    </svg>


</body>
</html>

Tags:

Image

Svg

Bitmapimage

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