Multiple perspectives into a single SVG - html

Question

Is it possible to have a multiple different views into single SVG, or even just simulate that sort of effect with some clever use of groups? I wish to show different parts of a potentially very large SVG, but I'd rather avoid rendering it multiple times. Is there some sort of simple way of doing this?

Answer 1

for standalone SVGs there is the <view/> element which you can use to show only portions of your graphics. try this in a standalone file.
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" viewBox="0 0 100 100" width="100" height="100">
<view id="circleView" viewBox="0 0 100 100"/>
<view id="rectView" viewBox="100 0 100 100"/>
<a xlink:href="#rectView">
<circle cx="50" cy="50" r="45" fill="blue"/>
</a>
<a xlink:href="#rectView">
<rect x="105" y="5" width="90" height="90" fill="royalblue" stroke="#53c"></rect>
</a>
</svg>
just click on the cirlce to see the rect and on the rect to see the circle.
this also works if you reference your svg via <img>
<img src="your.svg#circleView"/>
<img src="your.svg#rectView"/>
i found this to be not working for inlined SVG. Here you can use a similar aproach. You can just change the viewBox of your SVG. In contrast to the above, viewBoxes can even be animated!
<svg viewBox="0 0 460 360" width="200" height="200">
<polygon id="triangle" points="100,10,450,350,10,350" fill="#52c" />
<circle id="circle" cx="50" cy="50" r="45" fill="#c52" />
<rect id="rect" x="255" y="155" width="200" height="200" fill="#5c2" />
<animate attributeName="viewBox" to="250 150 210 210" dur="0.5s" begin="circle.click" fill="freeze" />
<animate attributeName="viewBox" to="0 0 100 100" dur="0.5s" begin="triangle.click" fill="freeze" />
<animate attributeName="viewBox" to="0 0 460 360" dur="0.5s" begin="rect.click" fill="freeze" />
</svg>
<br/>click on any of he shapes!
of course you can also just set the viewBox by script...
if you want to reference different parts of your SVG, you might use the <use> - Element as suggested in the other answers.

Answer 2

It's pretty simple to do. You just use the <use> element as Robert suggests. Here is a working example.
svg {
border: solid 1px black;
}
svg#original {
width: 450px;
}
<svg viewBox="0 0 450 300" id="original">
<circle cx="225" cy="150" r="150" fill="orange"/>
<circle cx="175" cy="110" r="25" fill="black"/>
<circle cx="275" cy="110" r="25" fill="black"/>
<circle cx="225" cy="70" r="150" fill="none" stroke="black" stroke-width="20" stroke-dasharray="0 145 180 1000"/>
</svg>
<br/>
<!-- part of the original at the same scale -->
<svg width="150" height="150">
<use xlink:href="#original" x="-50" y="0" width="450" height="300"/>
</svg>
<!-- part of the original at 0.5x scale -->
<svg width="150" height="150">
<use xlink:href="#original" x="0" y="0" width="450" height="300" transform="scale(0.5)"/>
</svg>
<!-- part of the original at 3x scale (and using a different method to achieve the scaling) -->
<svg width="150" height="150">
<use xlink:href="#original" x="-450" y="-255" width="1350" height="900"/>
</svg>