I am trying to build a raster drawing application using C# and so far I have not been able to locate any versatile light weight 2D graphics frameworks, or guides.
I was hoping a few of you would be able to give me a good head start because currently my choices are using GDI+ or WPF and that is about it :(…
Basically I need something simple that will provide me with the ability to create a Canvas, Layers, Brushes, and the ability to import/export all of these things. I have looked through several graphic applications to see how they implemented their tools and looked online for books and have come out with no knowledge about where to begin.
Thank You,
Andrew
You don’t mention if you want to make a vector editor or a raster editor. I’m assuming raster.
If you don’t have much graphics API experience, and just want to get something working as soon as possible, just go with GDI+. It is much simpler than WPF conceptually.
Both GDI+ and WPF can do what you want. Working with WPF will probably give better performance because it uses Direct-X for acceleration. It also uses a stored-scene paradigm, which may make a lot of drawing operations conceptually simpler. The learning curve is much higher than GDI+, though.
You could always use Open-GL, Direct-X, or unmanaged GDI. They all have good 2D performance. But you will have to make calls to unmanaged code.