Comparison of PNG and SVG

A pvserver can serve pvbrowser clients with the pv-protocol as well as httpd and normal webbrowser clients with the http-protocol. Both modes can be used with the same pvserver at the same time. Therefore, it is possible to evaluate the different constellations by means of metrological analysis.

The following test graphics are used for this purpose:

The file test.png

The file test.svg

The associated file sizes

You can see that with a graphic with many short lines and integrated raster graphics, the SVG version of the graphic is much larger than the corresponding PNG version. So it makes sense to decide, depending on the complexity of the graphic, whether it makes more sense to choose vector or raster graphics (SVG or PNG). We will see from the following CPU measurements that SVG graphics generate a percentage of less load on the server and move the CPU load to the client. SVG is therefore better for a good "Speed Up" in the sense of parallel processing. A relatively low-capacity server (e. g. embedded system in a control cabinet) can serve more clients, because the load of drawing the individual vectors is shifted there.

The following measurements were taken on this notebook in 2008. The measurements have all been performed on localhost. The client and server were therefore running on the same system.