Image files: wait just a minute here!

We got tied up in knots this morning discussing how to draw rectangles on files like PDF and SVG. But PDF is not an image format. If a SARIF producer wants to draw rectangles on a PDF, it can take a screenshot, or use a PDF-to-JPEG converter. Likewise, SVG (although unquestionably an image format) is a text representation. A SARIF producer could specify a region containing the XML elements of interest, and a viewer that knows how to render SVG could add the necessary decorations to highlight the area. Or again, the producer could convert to a pixel-based image file.

 

We can certainly continue to talk about improvements to image-like attachments, but I propose we limit “rectangle” support to pixel-based image files, and suggest “take a screenshot” or “convert to JPEG or PNG” for anything else. After all, the original motivation for what became generic image support was precisely that: screenshots.

 

Larry