VML & SVG

Vector Markup Language (VML) is an open and standards-based XML language used to producevector graphics.

VML was submitted as a proposed standard to the W3C in 1998 by Autodesk, Hewlett-Packard,Macromedia, Microsoft, and Visio.^[1]

Around the same time other competing W3C submissions were received in the area of web vector graphics, such as PGML from Adobe Systems, Sun Microsystems, and others.^[2] As a result of these submissions, a new W3C working group was created, which produced SVG.

While Microsoft continues to document VML,^[3] development of the format ceased in 1998.^[4] VML is implemented in Internet Explorer 5.0 and higher and in Microsoft Office 2000 and higher. Google Mapscurrently uses VML to make vector paths work when running on Internet Explorer 5.5+, and SVG on all other browsers.^[5]

The Vector Markup Language is now specified in Part 4 of the Office Open XML standards ISO/IEC29500:2008 and ECMA-376.^[6][7]

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is a family of specifications of an XML-based file format for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static and dynamic (i.e. interactive or animated).

The SVG specification is an open standard that has been under development by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) since 1999.

SVG images and their behaviours are defined in XML text files. This means that they can be searched, indexed, scripted and, if required, compressed. Since they are XML files, SVG images can be created and edited with any text editor, but specialized SVG-based drawing programs are also available.

All major modern web browsers except Microsoft Internet Explorer support and render SVG markup directly.^[3] To view SVG files in Internet Explorer, either users have to download and install a browser plugin, or the webmaster can include SVG Web, a JavaScript library currently under development atGoogle Code^[4].

SVG is also well-suited to small and mobile devices. The SVG Basic and SVG Tiny specifications were developed with just such uses in mind and many current mobile devices support them.

Source : wikipedia