Not to crap all over your idea, but why would you convert a newer tech into old, basically deprecated one? This could easily be achieved using pure SVG.

I need to utilize it on iPhone and android which I believe they do not fully support SVG. Beside I'm curious to know why there is negative values in absolute positioning. If you know a better way to do it in svg I'm very open to know it and use it.

I don't have an iPhone to test but I believe the only SVG it doesn't support are SMIL animations and it doesn't sound like you will need that for what you are doing. Most likely full support will happen in the coming months anyway, so you will be ahead of the game.

I have created a very quick example showing how you can have a map with links drawn out with a path in SVG. I have placed a link over the isle of Corsica on the map using a path. Note that the fill-opacity attribute is what makes the path transparent over the map.

Example: http://static.dorshnik.com/test/map-paths.svg

As for the negative values, I really don't know much about defining paths manually.

I just borrowed an iPad and ran the acid test on the iOS Safari and it scored a 99 so SVG support is definitely available on the iPhone/Pad, I've yet to test an android but I would bet money it has full supp0rt.

To (try to) answer your actual question - Inkscape converts its user coordinates (0,0) bottom left into the svg standard (0,0) top right internaly. Is that where the negative could come from?

-Rob A>