SVG polar gradients

Question

I'm a beginner at SVG, but I'd like to learn some techniques.

To be short, is there a simple way to create something like this?

I was thinking about creating a polar gradient and then clipping it:

But how do I generate a polar gradient?

Even if there's no native method, maybe it could be made with a simple linear gradient and then using some rectangular-polar coordinate transformation. Is there a way to do so?

Answer 1

So this is the solution I developed:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11.dtd"> 
<svg viewBox="0 0 100 100" version="1.1" onload="makeGradient();">
    <script>
        function makeGradient() {
            var root = document.rootElement, i = 256, cir, a;
            for (; i--;) {
                a = i*Math.PI/128;
                cir = document.createElementNS("http://www.w3.org/2000/svg", "circle");
                cir.setAttribute("cx", 50 - Math.sin(a)*45);
                cir.setAttribute("cy", 50 - Math.cos(a)*45);
                cir.setAttribute("r", "5");
                cir.setAttribute("fill", "rgb(" + i + ", " + i + ", " + i + ")");
                root.appendChild(cir);
            }
        }
    </script>
</svg>

Minified version (395 bytes):

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 20 20" version="1.1" onload="g(this.namespaceURI,document,Math)"><script>function g(n,d,m,i,c,a,p,z){for(i=256;i--;){a=i*m.PI/128;c=d.createElementNS(n,"circle");for(p in z={cx:10-m.sin(a)*9,cy:10-m.cos(a)*9,r:1,fill:"rgb("+[i,i,i]+")"})c.setAttribute(p,z[p]);d.rootElement.appendChild(c)}}</script></svg>

This was made creating circles filled with 256 shades of gray (it sounds like porn literature for coders!) and conveniently placed.

The radii can be adjusted: I've chosen 45 for the whole spinner and 5 for the single circles. Moreover, the detail can be adjusted too if 256 are too many:

for (; i -= 2;) { ...

Use powers of 2 for optimal results. Or just define the number of steps:

var steps = 100, i = steps;
for (; i--;) {
    a = i*2*Math.PI/steps;
    ...
    cir.setAttribute("fill", "rgb(" + i*255/steps + ", " + ...);
}

A big "thank you" to Erik Dahlström for the hint, and thank you Michael Mullany for the attempt :)

Edit: Here's a fiddle to demonstrate the code.

Edit 2: Here's another fiddle using curved segments to create the spinner. You can adjust the number of segments and the size, and even see it spinning. I don't know why when the size is auto, there's a bottom margin of 5 pixels on the SVG, this making the spinning slightly off-centered...

Answer 2

There are no paintservers in SVG 1.1 that allow this directly, but you can e.g do it using a bit of script. Here's an article that explains how.

Answer 3

There is no support for polar gradients in SVG 1.1 (what's available in most edge browsers today) although there are proposals to allow capabilities like these in SVG 2. The only workaround I can think of is to apply a blend filter using an externally generated image as your multiply source. But then, I'm assuming the whole point it to try to avoid external images so this would be a little pointless:)