Easy to use drawing library in c or c++?

Question

I'd need a very easy to use drawing c or c++ library. This means that I don't need to put buttons, frames or anything else in there, but I need just to draw points, circles, lines on a graphic window. Is that possible?

I wish I could vote down comments. Is it so hard to believe that someone would be equally happy with a C or C++ library? — AShelly, Sep 25 '11 at 03:00

score 11 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 15 '11 at 15:32

11

Cairo is a nice option if you are looking for ease of usage.

answered Jun 15 '11 at 15:32

Alok Save

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... and it also has a C++ wrapper called cairomm. – kalev Jun 15 '11 at 16:40

score 8 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 15 '11 at 15:30

8

You can use one of the many C++ creative coding frameworks:

answered Jun 15 '11 at 15:30

yan

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score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 15 '11 at 15:55

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If you are working on Windows, try Direct2D, it's very powerful and equally simple to use.

More info at : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd370990%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

answered Jun 15 '11 at 15:55

lwg643

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score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 15 '11 at 20:31

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SDL is pretty nice. If you really want to get involved, Direct3D and OpenGL are probably the best options.

answered Jun 15 '11 at 20:31

MGZero

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Trouble with SDL is that, AFAIK, it has few geometry drawing operations and you'll likely have to fall back to setPixel. That said, http://www.pygame.org/docs/ref/draw.html does have what's needed, maybe there's a C/C++ library based on SDL somewhere that does the same? – cib May 04 '13 at 16:22

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 15 '11 at 15:31

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Try SFML: http://www.sfml-dev.org/

answered Jun 15 '11 at 15:31

Karel Petranek

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 15 '11 at 15:34

You should be a little more specific:

What platforms do you want to target?
What do you exactly mean by "easy to use"?

If you are using Windows and just want to learn the concepts of computer graphics, just use the Windows GDI.

If you want to learn computer graphics for mobile devices, use OpenGL. It is a bit harder to use than the Windows GDI, because it is a lower level API, but it is more powerful.

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 15 '11 at 15:38

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Anti-Grain Geometry has some really nice results. It's not difficult to use. It's a C++ library and I don't know if there are C bindings.

answered Jun 15 '11 at 15:38

Vitor Py

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Easy to use drawing library in c or c++?

7 Answers7