One of the subjects Microsoft is giving a lot of attention to in Internet Explorer 9 is graphics: extensive SVG implementation plans, various CSS specifications related to graphics, and with GPU Acceleration available by default. This isn’t entirely surprising: considering Microsoft owns the operating system and graphic libraries which have to be used for the acceleration and only support a limited amount of configurations, implementation is a lot easier than having to create cross-platform implementations based on third-party software.

Nevertheless, they are doing quite a good job at implementing the specifications, and certainly with a lot of sense for the finer details. A good example of this can be found in their rendering of borders. One of the new CSS properties that Internet Explorer 9 introduces is border-radius, as defined in the Backgrounds and Borders specification. While the specification still isn’t entirely clear on how to render mixed border-style connections, Microsoft’s latest implementation does look smooth and well adapting.

Scalable Vector Graphics

SVG is becoming a widely implemented specification for scalable graphics. With a file format based on XML, confirmed support for in-line HTML rendering in three major browsers, a mature specification and lots of support from professional graphic editing software such as Adobe Illustrator, it’s destined to strongly gain in popularity in the near future.

Internet Explorer 9 will support the entire SVG 1.1 specification, with the exception of Fonts, Filters and SMIL. Microsoft believes that web fonts have a decent future as it is, mainly because the W3C Fonts group is making vast progress in standardizing a common format. Filters will not be included because they are not convinced about how often they will be used, considering Internet Explorer has supported various filters since version 4, but barely anyone has used them. Finally, SMIL will be omitted because the company believes there would be too many different ways of handling animation. A fair reason, as CSS 3 introduces two additional ways of adding animation to your webpage.

Per-pixel rendering using <canvas>

While the Internet Explorer team is making a lot of progress with the development of Internet Explorer 9, not only on the technical side, but also through a development process which is more open than was the case with previous releases, their position on the HTML5 canvas element is simply vague. Early May Giorgio Sardo, an Internet Explorer evangelist, already indicated that he would like to have support for the element in IE9, but the company has neither confirmed nor denied inclusion of the element in the new browser. Just yesterday, however, Dean Hachamovitch hinted that Microsoft still has some tricks up their sleeve: “We’re not talking at this point about whether we’re supporting canvas or not, but I’m smiling broadly. All your graphics needs will be taken care of, and I’m smiling broadly.”

My guess would be, something I have been saying ever since the release of the first Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview, that they certainly will be implementing canvas. I mostly base this on their attention to the graphical aspects of IE9, as well as on the comments made by various Microsoft employees. As Mozilla’s Brendan Eich already said about the subject: “Canvas is pretty small. It’s like your postscript level to 2D graphics.” I’m assuming that Microsoft knows their own APIs by heart, so implementation of the 2D canvas standard shouldn’t be a problem at all. In fact, utilizing the power of the Direct3D API, I’d say even WebGL is a likeliness. Microsoft is smiling broadly, let’s hope they allow us to do the same.