SVG + Semantics = Awesome (Ground Operations Use Case)

For the last months, we have been working a software to park aircraft and manage ground operations on airport facilities.
First of all, here is a demo:

This new complex application was built upon our recent actionscript 3 SVG framework.
Initially, this framework allowed to render a big scope of SVG, an easy extend to create innovative drawing and editing tools (like expectation list, shape recognition).
To enable Ground Operations, we decided to go one step ahead and do:

SVG + Semantics = Awesome!!

Semantics as in behaviours and context out of just drawing elements.
To this effects we used the class attribute from SVG nodes. Adding a class we can create “special” nodes that can relate graphical information with behaviour. To make this more clear, just imagine that you have any graphical SVG node (a path, a group..) a you add the class “collidable”. At this point all these node will have collision detection and send events of collision that you can work with after (alert, highlight, have collision movement,..). So, we have a SVG node with behaviour regarding its graphical representation.
Another example is physics. A graphical element allows you to set it as “physic body” and drag it around with physical behaviour.

This is a very powerful concept as we can add context and behaviour to random graphical elements created in a huge number of tools offline as come to live on the framework.

In the case of our new application, we have more complex classes, like “Aircraft” that following a structure, know exactly what and where landing gears are (and create paths when moving), know where the plane nose is and check where it is parked, know its body parts and had them collision behaviour or even now its silhouette and use it to extend it to simulate the 3-foot rule (safety distance between aircraft).

There is also classes like parking spots, hangars, hangar’s doors, so we can have, as an example, functional hangars of any shape or format.
So, the whole facility and ground is just a plain SVG that can be viewed at any time in any browser or application and that we can even change offline and use it again in the application. That is flexibility!

What was wonderful, was that all aircraft were “legacy” SVG material and we were able with small changes to incorporate them on the application directly from file.

We are doing other projects that also use this concept of semantics over SVG and it’s really great.