There are several basic shapes used for most SVG drawing. The purpose of these shapes is fairly obvious from their names. Some of the parameters that determine their position and size are given, but an element reference would probably contain more accurate and complete descriptions along with other properties that won't be covered in here. However, since they're used in most SVG documents, it's necessary to give them some sort of introduction.
To insert a shape, you create an element in the document. Different elements correspond to different shapes and take different parameters to describe the size and position of those shapes. Some are slightly redundant in that they can be created by other shapes, but they're all there for your convenience and to keep your SVG documents as short and as readable as possible. All the basic shapes are shown in the following image.
The code to generate that image looks something like this:
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?> <svg width="200" height="250" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"> <rect x="10" y="10" width="30" height="30" stroke="black" fill="transparent" stroke-width="5"/> <rect x="60" y="10" rx="10" ry="10" width="30" height="30" stroke="black" fill="transparent" stroke-width="5"/> <circle cx="25" cy="75" r="20" stroke="red" fill="transparent" stroke-width="5"/> <ellipse cx="75" cy="75" rx="20" ry="5" stroke="red" fill="transparent" stroke-width="5"/> <line x1="10" x2="50" y1="110" y2="150" stroke="orange" stroke-width="5"/> <polyline points="60 110 65 120 70 115 75 130 80 125 85 140 90 135 95 150 100 145" stroke="orange" fill="transparent" stroke-width="5"/> <polygon points="50 160 55 180 70 180 60 190 65 205 50 195 35 205 40 190 30 180 45 180" stroke="green" fill="transparent" stroke-width="5"/> <path d="M20,230 Q40,205 50,230 T90,230" fill="none" stroke="blue" stroke-width="5"/> </svg>
Note: The stroke
, stroke-width
, and fill
attributes are explained later in the tutorial.