Adobe Systems Inc, along with IBM Corp, Netscape Communications Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc has submitted a proposal to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to enhance the development of, and access to, vector-based graphics. The submission, known as the Precision Graphics Markup Language (PGML) is a two- dimensional graphics language to control layout, fonts, color and printing of web pages including vector graphics, which are said to be faster than bitmap format and print better. PGML, which is written using XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is based on the Adobe’s PostScript language and PDF file formats, but also include intellectual property from the other three sponsors. As normal with the W3C, the submission has resulted in a request for a working group to be established that would discuss the proposal. Macromedia Inc, which yesterday offered the source code to its Shockwave Flash (.swf) vector graphics file format, said the PGML format was much more static than its format and while it talks about animation it is not comprehensive. However, it did say that the spec was built with future extensions in mind. Macromedia claims Flash is a superset of PGML already.
