How do I draw simple graphics in C#?

c# .net graphics directx 2d
msvcyc picture msvcyc · Aug 19, 2009 · Viewed 67.9k times · Source

I just want to draw simple 2D objects like circle, line, square etc in C#. How do I do that? Back in the Turbo C++ days I remember initializing some graphics library for doing the same. Do I need to do something similar in .NET? Is it any different for 3D objects? Will things like DirectX make this any easier? Any links to tutorials or samples much appreciated.

Answer

John Rudy picture John Rudy · Aug 19, 2009

As others have said, check out System.Drawing. (I'm only repeating that for completeness.) System.Drawing exposes the GDI+ Windows drawing library to your application.

A good tutorial to get you jump-started with System.Drawing and GDI+ can be found at C# Corner.

Some important items to note:

  1. Many GDI+ objects implement the IDisposable interface, and therefore should be wrapped in using blocks. Be sure you follow the appropriate disposal conventions; failing to dispose GDI+ objects can result in really nasty side effects for your app. (GDI+ objects in .NET correspond to their underlying Windows API equivalents.)
  2. APIs such as DirectX are extremely complex, and for good reason. They're designed not for simple shapes, but rather for complex, highly-performant and highly-interactive multimedia applications. (In other words, games, typically.) You can access DirectX through the Managed DirectX interfaces, but again, it's probably overkill for your direct purposes.
  3. If you are interested in an easier way to work with DirectX, XNA is the way to go. However, this is very much a gaming-specific library, and again is likely to be overkill. I'm a bit late to the party, but according to the comments below, this is no longer supported at all. (This makes sense; I haven't heard anything about it in years.)

Related questions

Convert string to Brushes/Brush color name in C#

I have a configuration file where a developer can specify a text color by passing in a string: <text value="Hello, World" color="Red"/> Rather than have a gigantic switch statement look for all of the possible colors, …

Read More
How to specify the position of an Ellipse shape on a canvas in WPF?

I am programmatically creating an Ellipse shape but I can't find any property that specifies its position. Lines have X1, Y1, X2, Y2, but there is no Center, Position, X, Y, etc on an Ellipse shape. How can I do …

Read More
Fast work with Bitmaps in C#

I need to access each pixel of a Bitmap, work with them, then save them to a Bitmap. Using Bitmap.GetPixel() and Bitmap.SetPixel(), my program runs slowly. How can I quickly convert Bitmap to byte[] and back? I need …

Read More