How do I convert an svg to png, in Python? I am storing the svg in an instance of StringIO. Should I use the pyCairo library? How do I write that code?

The answer is “pyrsvg” – a Python binding for librsvg.

There is an Ubuntu python-rsvg package providing it. Searching Google for its name is poor because its source code seems to be contained inside the “gnome-python-desktop” Gnome project GIT repository.

I made a minimalist “hello world” that renders SVG to a cairo surface and writes it to disk:

import cairo
import rsvg

img = cairo.ImageSurface(cairo.FORMAT_ARGB32, 640,480)

ctx = cairo.Context(img)

## handle = rsvg.Handle(<svg filename>)
# or, for in memory SVG data:
handle= rsvg.Handle(None, str(<svg data>))

handle.render_cairo(ctx)

img.write_to_png("svg.png")

Update: as of 2014 the needed package for Fedora Linux distribution is: gnome-python2-rsvg. The above snippet listing still works as-is.

Here is what I did using cairosvg:

from cairosvg import svg2png

svg_code = """
    <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"   viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="#000" stroke- stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round">
        <circle cx="12" cy="12" r="10"/>
        <line x1="12" y1="8" x2="12" y2="12"/>
        <line x1="12" y1="16" x2="12" y2="16"/>
    </svg>
"""

svg2png(bytestring=svg_code,write_to='output.png')

And it works like a charm!

See more: cairosvg document

Install Inkscape and call it as command line:

${INKSCAPE_PATH} -z -f ${source_svg} -w ${width} -j -e ${dest_png}

You can also snap specific rectangular area only using parameter -j, e.g. co-ordinate “0:125:451:217”

${INKSCAPE_PATH} -z -f ${source_svg} -w ${width} -j -a ${coordinates} -e ${dest_png}

If you want to show only one object in the SVG file, you can specify the parameter -i with the object id that you have setup in the SVG. It hides everything else.

${INKSCAPE_PATH} -z -f ${source_svg} -w ${width} -i ${object} -j -a ${coordinates} -e ${dest_png}

I’m using Wand-py (an implementation of the Wand wrapper around ImageMagick) to import some pretty advanced SVGs and so far have seen great results! This is all the code it takes:

    with wand.image.Image( blob=svg_file.read(), format="svg" ) as image:
        png_image = image.make_blob("png")

I just discovered this today, and felt like it was worth sharing for anyone else who might straggle across this answer as it’s been a while since most of these questions were answered.

NOTE: Technically in testing I discovered you don’t even actually have to pass in the format parameter for ImageMagick, so with wand.image.Image( blob=svg_file.read() ) as image: was all that was really needed.

EDIT: From an attempted edit by qris, here’s some helpful code that lets you use ImageMagick with an SVG that has a transparent background:

from wand.api import library
import wand.color
import wand.image

with wand.image.Image() as image:
    with wand.color.Color('transparent') as background_color:
        library.MagickSetBackgroundColor(image.wand, 
                                         background_color.resource) 
    image.read(blob=svg_file.read(), format="svg")
    png_image = image.make_blob("png32")

with open(output_filename, "wb") as out:
    out.write(png_image)

Try this: http://cairosvg.org/

The site says:

CairoSVG is written in pure python and only depends on Pycairo. It is known to work on Python 2.6 and 2.7.

Update November 25, 2016:

2.0.0 is a new major version, its changelog includes:

• Drop Python 2 support

Another solution I’ve just found here How to render a scaled SVG to a QImage?

from PySide.QtSvg import *
from PySide.QtGui import *


def convertSvgToPng(svgFilepath,pngFilepath,width):
    r=QSvgRenderer(svgFilepath)
    height=r.defaultSize().height()*width/r.defaultSize().width()
    i=QImage(width,height,QImage.Format_ARGB32)
    p=QPainter(i)
    r.render(p)
    i.save(pngFilepath)
    p.end()

PySide is easily installed from a binary package in Windows (and I use it for other things so is easy for me).

However, I noticed a few problems when converting country flags from Wikimedia, so perhaps not the most robust svg parser/renderer.

A little extension on the answer of jsbueno:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import cairo
import rsvg
from xml.dom import minidom


def convert_svg_to_png(svg_file, output_file):
    # Get the svg files content
    with open(svg_file) as f:
        svg_data = f.read()

    # Get the width / height inside of the SVG
    doc = minidom.parse(svg_file)
    width = int([path.getAttribute('width') for path
                 in doc.getElementsByTagName('svg')][0])
    height = int([path.getAttribute('height') for path
                  in doc.getElementsByTagName('svg')][0])
    doc.unlink()

    # create the png
    img = cairo.ImageSurface(cairo.FORMAT_ARGB32, width, height)
    ctx = cairo.Context(img)
    handler = rsvg.Handle(None, str(svg_data))
    handler.render_cairo(ctx)
    img.write_to_png(output_file)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    from argparse import ArgumentParser

    parser = ArgumentParser()

    parser.add_argument("-f", "--file", dest="svg_file",
                        help="SVG input file", metavar="FILE")
    parser.add_argument("-o", "--output", dest="output", default="svg.png",
                        help="PNG output file", metavar="FILE")
    args = parser.parse_args()

    convert_svg_to_png(args.svg_file, args.output)

I did not find any of the answers satisfactory. All the mentioned libraries have some problem or the other like Cairo dropping support for python 3.6 (they dropped Python 2 support some 3 years ago!). Also, installing the mentioned libraries on the Mac was a pain.

Finally, I found the best solution was svglib + reportlab. Both installed without a hitch using pip and first call to convert from svg to png worked beautifully! Very happy with the solution.

Just 2 commands do the trick:

from svglib.svglib import svg2rlg
from reportlab.graphics import renderPM
drawing = svg2rlg("my.svg")
renderPM.drawToFile(drawing, "my.png", fmt="PNG")

Are there any limitations with these I should be aware of?

SVG scaling and PNG rendering

Using pycairo and librsvg I was able to achieve SVG scaling and rendering to a bitmap. Assuming your SVG is not exactly 256×256 pixels, the desired output, you can read in the SVG to a Cairo context using rsvg and then scale it and write to a PNG.

main.py

import cairo
import rsvg

width = 256
height = 256

svg = rsvg.Handle('cool.svg')
unscaled_width = svg.props.width
unscaled_height = svg.props.height

svg_surface = cairo.SVGSurface(None, width, height)
svg_context = cairo.Context(svg_surface)
svg_context.save()
svg_context.scale(width/unscaled_width, height/unscaled_height)
svg.render_cairo(svg_context)
svg_context.restore()

svg_surface.write_to_png('cool.png')

RSVG C binding

From the Cario website with some minor modification. Also a good example of how to call a C-library from Python

from ctypes import CDLL, POINTER, Structure, byref, util
from ctypes import c_bool, c_byte, c_void_p, c_int, c_double, c_uint32, c_char_p


class _PycairoContext(Structure):
    _fields_ = [("PyObject_HEAD", c_byte * object.__basicsize__),
                ("ctx", c_void_p),
                ("base", c_void_p)]


class _RsvgProps(Structure):
    _fields_ = [("width", c_int), ("height", c_int),
                ("em", c_double), ("ex", c_double)]


class _GError(Structure):
    _fields_ = [("domain", c_uint32), ("code", c_int), ("message", c_char_p)]


def _load_rsvg(rsvg_lib_path=None, gobject_lib_path=None):
    if rsvg_lib_path is None:
        rsvg_lib_path = util.find_library('rsvg-2')
    if gobject_lib_path is None:
        gobject_lib_path = util.find_library('gobject-2.0')
    l = CDLL(rsvg_lib_path)
    g = CDLL(gobject_lib_path)
    g.g_type_init()

    l.rsvg_handle_new_from_file.argtypes = [c_char_p, POINTER(POINTER(_GError))]
    l.rsvg_handle_new_from_file.restype = c_void_p
    l.rsvg_handle_render_cairo.argtypes = [c_void_p, c_void_p]
    l.rsvg_handle_render_cairo.restype = c_bool
    l.rsvg_handle_get_dimensions.argtypes = [c_void_p, POINTER(_RsvgProps)]

    return l


_librsvg = _load_rsvg()


class Handle(object):
    def __init__(self, path):
        lib = _librsvg
        err = POINTER(_GError)()
        self.handle = lib.rsvg_handle_new_from_file(path.encode(), byref(err))
        if self.handle is None:
            gerr = err.contents
            raise Exception(gerr.message)
        self.props = _RsvgProps()
        lib.rsvg_handle_get_dimensions(self.handle, byref(self.props))

    def get_dimension_data(self):
        svgDim = self.RsvgDimensionData()
        _librsvg.rsvg_handle_get_dimensions(self.handle, byref(svgDim))
        return (svgDim.width, svgDim.height)

    def render_cairo(self, ctx):
        """Returns True is drawing succeeded."""
        z = _PycairoContext.from_address(id(ctx))
        return _librsvg.rsvg_handle_render_cairo(self.handle, z.ctx)

Here is an approach where Inkscape is called by Python.

Note that it suppresses certain crufty output that Inkscape writes to the console (specifically, stderr and stdout) during normal error-free operation. The output is captured in two string variables, out and err.

import subprocess               # May want to use subprocess32 instead

cmd_list = [ '/full/path/to/inkscape', '-z', 
             '--export-png', '/path/to/output.png',
             '--export-width', 100,
             '--export-height', 100,
             '/path/to/input.svg' ]

# Invoke the command.  Divert output that normally goes to stdout or stderr.
p = subprocess.Popen( cmd_list, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE )

# Below, < out > and < err > are strings or < None >, derived from stdout and stderr.
out, err = p.communicate()      # Waits for process to terminate

# Maybe do something with stdout output that is in < out >
# Maybe do something with stderr output that is in < err >

if p.returncode:
    raise Exception( 'Inkscape error: ' + (err or '?')  )

For example, when running a particular job on my Mac OS system, out ended up being:

Background RRGGBBAA: ffffff00
Area 0:0:339:339 exported to 100 x 100 pixels (72.4584 dpi)
Bitmap saved as: /path/to/output.png

(The input svg file had a size of 339 by 339 pixels.)

Actually, I did not want to be dependent of anything else but Python (Cairo, Ink.., etc.) My requirements were to be as simple as possible, at most, a simple pip install "savior" would suffice, that’s why any of those above didn’t suit for me.

I came through this (going further than Stackoverflow on the research). https://www.tutorialexample.com/best-practice-to-python-convert-svg-to-png-with-svglib-python-tutorial/

Looks good, so far. So I share it in case anyone in the same situation.