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Asked: 2026-05-20T15:50:21+00:00

I want to be able to dynamically place images over another image in my

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I want to be able to dynamically place images over another image in my app, using Cairo or GTK functions. Imagine, for example, a sea in which the user places fish and sea animals: it will be like that.

How can I do this? If you don’t know but remember any simple program or demo that does that, it will be also very welcome!

Thank you!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You can use a GtkDrawingArea and draw the images on it using cairo:

    Example:

    #include <cairo.h>
#include <gtk/gtk.h>

cairo_surface_t * sea_surface;
cairo_surface_t * fish_surface;

gboolean on_expose_event(GtkWidget * widget, GdkEventExpose * event, gpointer data) {
    // Create the cairo instance.
    cairo_t * cr = gdk_cairo_create(widget->window);
    // Draw the sea background.
    cairo_set_source_surface(cr, sea_surface, 0.0, 0.0);
    cairo_paint(cr);
    // Draw the fish.
    cairo_set_source_surface(cr, fish_surface, 50.0, 50.0);
    cairo_paint(cr);
    // Destroy the cairo instance.
    cairo_destroy(cr);
    return FALSE;
}

int main(int argc, char * argv[]) {
    gtk_init(&argc, &argv);

    // Load images.
    sea_surface = cairo_image_surface_create_from_png("sea.png");
    fish_surface = cairo_image_surface_create_from_png("fish.png");

    // Create window.
    GtkWidget * window;
    window = gtk_window_new(GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);
    g_signal_connect(G_OBJECT(window), "destroy", G_CALLBACK(gtk_main_quit), NULL);
    gtk_window_set_default_size(GTK_WINDOW(window), 320, 240);  

    // Create drawing area where we're going to draw our images.
    GtkWidget * drawing_area = gtk_drawing_area_new();
    g_signal_connect(G_OBJECT(drawing_area), "expose-event", G_CALLBACK(on_expose_event), NULL);
    gtk_container_add(GTK_CONTAINER(window), drawing_area);

    // Show window and start gtk main loop.
    gtk_widget_show_all(window);
    gtk_main();

    // Clean-up.
    cairo_surface_destroy(fish_surface);
    cairo_surface_destroy(sea_surface);
    return 0;
}

    To compile it on linux use:

    gcc -Wall -g images.c -o images `pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-2.0`

    Documentation:

    Examples:

    EDIT: If you need to be able to do this from Java, you can use java-gnome which provides bindings for both GTK and cairo.

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