Question

I’m looking for a simple way to implement a framebuffer in C#, D or Java. Something (an API or library) that would allow me to work with a 2d array of colors and update individual pixels or areas. Also, something that doesn’t incur large overhead on update. I know that this can be done with OpenGL, but the API seems far too complicated for what I’m doing.

Answer 1

Try using a plain old System.Drawing.Bitmap in .NET?
You could use Bitmap.Lockbits() to get access to the byte array behind the bitmap and update it. This is much more efficient than normal pixel operations on the bitmap.

MSDN has an example here that I’ve pasted from:

private void LockUnlockBitsExample(PaintEventArgs e)
    {

        // Create a new bitmap.
        Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap("c:\\fakePhoto.jpg");

        // Lock the bitmap's bits.  
        Rectangle rect = new Rectangle(0, 0, bmp.Width, bmp.Height);
        System.Drawing.Imaging.BitmapData bmpData =
            bmp.LockBits(rect, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageLockMode.ReadWrite,
            bmp.PixelFormat);

        // Get the address of the first line.
        IntPtr ptr = bmpData.Scan0;

        // Declare an array to hold the bytes of the bitmap.
        int bytes  = Math.Abs(bmpData.Stride) * bmp.Height;
        byte[] rgbValues = new byte[bytes];

        // Copy the RGB values into the array.
        System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.Copy(ptr, rgbValues, 0, bytes);

        // Set every third value to 255. A 24bpp bitmap will look red.  
        for (int counter = 2; counter < rgbValues.Length; counter += 3)
            rgbValues[counter] = 255;

        // Copy the RGB values back to the bitmap
        System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.Copy(rgbValues, 0, ptr, bytes);

        // Unlock the bits.
        bmp.UnlockBits(bmpData);

        // Draw the modified image.
        e.Graphics.DrawImage(bmp, 0, 150);

    }