Ways to handle SVG rendering in wordpress?

Take a look at wp_prepare_attachment_for_js(), which is what gathers attachment metadata for use on the Media pages. The eponymous filter lets us add or alter metadata.

The following example can be dropped into functions.php. Note: this requires SimpleXML support in PHP.

function common_svg_media_thumbnails($response, $attachment, $meta){
    if($response['type'] === 'image' && $response['subtype'] === 'svg+xml' && class_exists('SimpleXMLElement'))
    {
        try {
            $path = get_attached_file($attachment->ID);
            if(@file_exists($path))
            {
                $svg = new SimpleXMLElement(@file_get_contents($path));
                $src = $response['url'];
                $width = (int) $svg['width'];
                $height = (int) $svg['height'];

                //media gallery
                $response['image'] = compact( 'src', 'width', 'height' );
                $response['thumb'] = compact( 'src', 'width', 'height' );

                //media single
                $response['sizes']['full'] = array(
                    'height'        => $height,
                    'width'         => $width,
                    'url'           => $src,
                    'orientation'   => $height > $width ? 'portrait' : 'landscape',
                );
            }
        }
        catch(Exception $e){}
    }

    return $response;
}
add_filter('wp_prepare_attachment_for_js', 'common_svg_media_thumbnails', 10, 3);