NovaSVG

NovaSVG is a lightweight, header-only C++17 library for parsing, manipulating, and rasterizing SVG files. It provides a clean, modern API for loading SVG documents, querying elements, applying CSS styles, and rendering to bitmaps or PNG files—all from a single include.

The library also offers a command-line interface for batch processing and automation.

✨ Features

Core Library

• Header-only design – Single include file for easy integration
• Modern C++17 API – Clean, type-safe interface with RAII semantics
• SVG parsing – Load from files, strings, or memory buffers
• Rasterization – Render to bitmaps with customizable dimensions and backgrounds
• Element querying – CSS selector support for finding elements
• CSS application – Apply stylesheets to modify SVG appearance
• Transformation support – Matrix operations for scaling, rotation, translation
• Font management – Add custom fonts for text rendering
• Cross-platform – Works on Windows, Linux, and macOS

Command-Line Interface

• SVG to PNG conversion – Batch convert with customizable dimensions
• SVG information – Extract metadata, bounding boxes, and element counts
• CSS querying – Find elements using CSS selectors
• Style application – Apply CSS stylesheets to SVG documents

SVG Filters

• Full filter-primitive pipeline – feGaussianBlur, feOffset, feFlood, feComposite (Over/In/Out/Atop/Xor), feMerge/feMergeNode, and the feDropShadow shorthand, with real in/in2/result chaining (SourceGraphic/SourceAlpha included) — chain primitives together to build custom effects, not just apply one at a time
• CSS transform: property – both the SVG transform= attribute and the CSS transform: property (set via style=/a stylesheet class, including deg/rad/grad/turn units) are supported

<foreignObject> / HTML-in-SVG text

• Plain-text extraction with real word-wrap – renders the text content of HTML embedded in <foreignObject> (tags stripped, CSS color/background-color from the HTML's own style=/class= respected, forced line breaks at <br>/<p>/<div> boundaries further greedy-wrapped by width) rather than skipping it entirely. This is what diagram tools like Mermaid.js rely on for every node/edge label; most other lightweight SVG renderers (resvg, lunasvg, cairosvg) currently render these as blank boxes — see COMPARISON.md for a from-scratch, empirical comparison. Full HTML/CSS layout (nested block layout, inline flow) is out of scope; see checklist.md.

Font matching

• Built-in family substitution (no OS library needed) – a font-family stack like "trebuchet ms", verdana, arial, sans-serif (what Mermaid.js itself emits) is walked name by name, like a browser does: a font installed or registered under that exact name, then a metric-compatible stand-in from novasvg's own table (arial → Liberation Sans / Arimo, times new roman → Liberation Serif / Tinos, courier new → Liberation Mono / Cousine, calibri → Carlito, cambria → Caladea, …, matched case-insensitively), then the generic keywords (sans-serif, …). A name with no metric-compatible stand-in (verdana) is skipped rather than guessed. Same result on every platform and no fontconfig or any other dependency; for best fidelity install a metric-compatible family such as fonts-liberation.
• Built-in fallback font (works with no fonts installed) – a ~40 KB Latin subset of DejaVu Sans (kerning and fi/fl/ffi ligatures kept, so text lays out exactly like the full font) is compiled in and used only as the last resort, when a generic family (sans-serif, serif, …) finds nothing else on the machine. Fonts you install or register always win. Characters outside Latin-1 and common punctuation need a system or registered font. Disable with -DNOVASVG_EMBED_DEFAULT_FONT=OFF (CMake) or by defining NOVASVG_DISABLE_EMBEDDED_FONT; regenerate with python tools/gen_default_font.py. License: data/fonts/LICENSE-DejaVu.txt.
• @font-face-embedded fonts (raw TTF/OTF) – an SVG that embeds its own font via @font-face { src: url(data:font/ttf;base64,...) } (as opposed to just naming a font-family and hoping the system has it) gets that font loaded and used under its declared family name. WOFF/ WOFF2 aren't decoded yet — only raw TrueType/OpenType payloads.

🚀 Quick Start

C++ Usage

#include <novasvg/novasvg.h>

int main() {
    // Load SVG from file
    auto doc = novasvg::Document::loadFromFile("artwork.svg");
    if (doc) {
        // Render to bitmap (auto-sized)
        auto bitmap = doc->renderToBitmap();
        
        // Save as PNG
        bitmap.writeToPng("artwork.png");
        
        // Query elements
        auto rectangles = doc->querySelectorAll("rect");
        std::cout << "Found " << rectangles.size() << " rectangles\n";
        
        // Get document dimensions
        std::cout << "Size: " << doc->width() << "x" << doc->height() << "\n";
    }
    return 0;
}

Command-Line Usage

cmake -B build && cmake --build build
./build/novasvg input.svg              # convert is implied, no need to type it
./build/novasvg input.svg -o output.png -w 800 -H 600

See the "CLI Reference" section below for the full option list.

📦 Installation

C++ Library

As Header-Only Library

Copy the include/novasvg/ directory into your project (or grab the single-header novasvg.h from the latest release) and #include <novasvg/novasvg.h>. Every function is marked inline, so there's no separate implementation file to define a macro for — that used to be required via a detail/novasvg_impl.h + #define NOVASVG_IMPLEMENTATION, but that split no longer exists; the whole library is safe to #include from any number of translation units as-is.

Building from Source

git clone https://github.com/MohammadRaziei/novasvg.git
cd novasvg
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DNOVASVG_BUILD_EXAMPLES=ON
make -j4

Command-Line Tool

The novasvg target builds automatically as part of the project (no separate flag needed) — after the build above, the binary is at build/novasvg:

sudo make install  # Optional: install system-wide

📚 API Overview

Core Classes

Document

• loadFromFile() / loadFromData() – Load SVG documents
• renderToBitmap() – Render to bitmap with optional dimensions
• querySelectorAll() – Find elements using CSS selectors
• applyStyleSheet() – Apply CSS styles
• width() / height() – Get document dimensions
• boundingBox() – Get document bounding box

Bitmap

• writeToPng() – Save as PNG file or stream
• data() – Access raw pixel data (ARGB32 Premultiplied)
• width() / height() / stride() – Get bitmap properties
• convertToRGBA() – Convert to RGBA format

Element

• hasAttribute() / getAttribute() / setAttribute() – Manage element attributes
• render() – Render element to bitmap
• getLocalBoundingBox() / getGlobalBoundingBox() – Get element bounds
• getLocalMatrix() / getGlobalMatrix() – Get transformation matrices

Matrix

• translate() / scale() / rotate() / shear() – Transformation operations
• inverse() – Matrix inversion
• Operator * – Matrix multiplication

🖥️ CLI Reference

# Convert -- the default action, no subcommand keyword needed
# (an explicit "convert" subcommand works identically, if you prefer it)
novasvg input.svg
novasvg convert input.svg -o output.png
novasvg input.svg -w 800 -H 600         # resize
novasvg input.svg -s 2.0                # scale factor
novasvg input.svg -b FFFFFF             # background color (hex)
novasvg input.svg --style "rect { fill: red; }"
novasvg input.svg --css-file custom.css

# Info / query / batch -- real subcommands for the other actions
novasvg info document.svg
novasvg info document.svg --json
novasvg query "circle" shapes.svg
novasvg query "rect[fill='red']" shapes.svg --json
novasvg batch svg_dir/ png_dir/

Run novasvg --help or novasvg <subcommand> --help for the complete, always-up-to-date option list.

🔧 Build Options

The novasvg command-line tool itself has no build flag — it's built unconditionally alongside the library. Converting is the implied default action (novasvg input.svg works with no subcommand needed).

🧪 Examples

C++ Examples

• examples/cpp/sample01_convert_svg_to_png.cpp – Batch convert SVGs to PNGs
• examples/cpp/sample02_query_svg_size.cpp – Query document properties

🎯 Use Cases

1. Graphics Applications – Embed SVG rendering in C++ applications
2. Web Development – Server-side SVG processing and optimization
3. Game Development – Load vector graphics for UI elements
4. Desktop Applications – Display vector graphics in GUI applications
5. Automation – Batch convert SVG assets with CLI tool

🔍 Performance Considerations

• Memory efficient – Minimal overhead for header-only design
• Fast rasterization – Optimized rendering pipeline
• Reusable bitmaps – Create once, render multiple times
• Appropriate sizing – Render at required resolution, not larger
• Batch operations – Process multiple SVGs efficiently

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Add tests if applicable
5. Submit a pull request

📄 License

NovaSVG is distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.txt for details.

📖 Documentation

• API Reference: Built with Doxygen (enable with -DNOVASVG_BUILD_DOCS=ON)
• Online Documentation: https://mohammadraziei.github.io/novasvg
• Examples: See examples/ directory
• CLI Documentation: See the "CLI Reference" section above
• Renderer comparison: COMPARISON.md — an empirical, same-input comparison against resvg/lunasvg/cairosvg/thorvg (filters, CSS transforms, foreignObject text handling)
• Known gaps / roadmap: checklist.md — what's fixed, what's intentionally out of scope and why, and optimization notes for anything that's currently correct-but-not-fast

🙏 Acknowledgments

NovaSVG builds upon ideas from existing SVG libraries while maintaining a distinct architectural philosophy focused on minimalism and header-only design.

📞 Support

• GitHub Issues: https://github.com/MohammadRaziei/novasvg/issues
• Documentation: https://mohammadraziei.github.io/novasvg