Ben's Bits

As a followup to the recent article on vector graphics I thought I would share a great example of vector graphics at work. The folks at the Open Clip Art Library are hard at work compiling a catalog of public domain clip art. While the keyword search is still pretty rought around the edges the library has done a great job at soliciting donated artwork. Of course, the two best parts are the requirement that all clip art be in the public domain and that SVG is the primary vector graphics format used.

What does this mean to you? First, it means that you can be fairly certain you won't be sued for a copyright violation in using this artwork in publications, in a presentation, or on a web site. This in itself is a great reason to have the library. Secondly, the use of SVG means you can use a variety of programs to manipulate and work with the files and scale them to any size you require. For more information on the SVG file format specifically and vector graphics in general see my earlier article.