Is there a way to convert a VML document to a bitmap image ?

Question

I've been looking for a long time for a way to have a bitmap from a VML document. In fact, I working on a few libs that use the tag, so I have no problem for anything except for IE (of course) because I'm using ExCanvas in IE, but I'd like to have a bitmap from the generated "canvas" (which is in fact VML).

I've been looking for a few ways to get a bitmap in JS from the VML, but I abandoned this idea, now I'd like to find a server side lib that is able to get a VML string and convert it to a bitmap image. My preferred language is PHP, but if there aren't any in this language, it'll be OK. I also looked at a Java applet that could do that, but this is in fact impossible without a signed one, this is not possible.

Thank you for your reply !

Answer 1

You could use something like CutyCapt to allow the browser to render it and capture that to an image.

Answer 2

I found a library which looks like the best solution to my problem : VectorConverter. It has however a few problems :

• it only supports a very limited part of the spec
• it is not maintained anymore
• the code is not very well written and it doesn't use an existing DOM parser for the VML
• I don't have time to enhance it !

So if anyone with a lot of time and who is interested in this project is welcome to work on it, and maybe fork it. Contact me if you plan to work on it, I may help you.

Answer 3

The simple possibility is to use C# to display a window loading the vml page in ie webbrowser control and use this.webBrowser.Navigate("file.html") to load the vml page included in the html and then make a snap shot by capturing the image automatically by using graphic.CopyFromScreen function

Answer 4

Hi Fabien,

I had a problem as your topic above. I use exCanvas as well to generate vml code in canvas tag on IE browser. I try to covert it to gif with VectorConverter, but all not running well.

php vc.php -gif [vml file] result.gif

I wish, if you had any suggestion an step that I can do to accomplish the problem, please guide me.

All suggestion will be appreciate.

Regards,

Mardi V. Tamma