What graphics library would be best for 2D CAD work?

[123 0]

CoffeeAddict19 wrote:

I'm thinking about writing a simple 2D CAD drawing program. It won't have anything near the complexity of a commercial CAD program, essentially it'll be a sophisticated vector based clone of MS Paint. It dosen't need to be multiplatform (windows xp/2000/vista). My question is, which graphics API or GUI would you recommend? MFC/GDI+, Qt4, OpenGL, DirectX, SDL? The only thing I won't use is .NET.

We used straight GDI for the bulk of the wysiwyg, vector-based page editor that is part of the development system we wrote, resorting to GDI+ only for the conversion functions that are missing in the old GDI (JPEG to BITMAP, for example). Our editor is simple and smooth and includes the usual graphics objects (rectangles, ellipses, lines, open and closed polygons, etc), plus text (in different fonts, styles, and colors) and pictures (which can be sized, cropped, rotated, mirrored, and flipped); it also supports grouping of objects (to any depth), various units of measure, snap grids, reduction, enlargement, multiple pages in different orientations, and it saves everything in ascii text. The interface is unique: it is modeless, and has none of the usual "tools"; nevertheless, it is easy to learn and very easy to use. I'd be glad to send you a copy, with source code, to give you some ideas - it's written in Plain English (about 4300 lines), but you can just think of it as pseudocode if you decide to write in another language. Interested? help@osmosian.com.

[123 0]

CoffeeAddict19 wrote:

I'm thinking about writing a simple 2D CAD drawing program. It won't have anything near the complexity of a commercial CAD program, essentially it'll be a sophisticated vector based clone of MS Paint. It dosen't need to be multiplatform (windows xp/2000/vista). My question is, which graphics API or GUI would you recommend? MFC/GDI+, Qt4, OpenGL, DirectX, SDL? The only thing I won't use is .NET.

We used straight GDI for the bulk of the wysiwyg, vector-based page editor that is part of the development system we wrote, resorting to GDI+ only for the conversion functions that are missing in the old GDI (JPEG to BITMAP, for example). Our editor is simple and smooth and includes the usual graphics objects (rectangles, ellipses, lines, open and closed polygons, etc), plus text (in different fonts, styles, and colors) and pictures (which can be sized, cropped, rotated, mirrored, and flipped); it also supports grouping of objects (to any depth), various units of measure, snap grids, reduction, enlargement, multiple pages in different orientations, and it saves everything in ascii text. The interface is unique: it is modeless, and has none of the usual "tools"; nevertheless, it is easy to learn and very easy to use. I'd be glad to send you a copy, with source code, to give you some ideas - it's written in Plain English (about 4300 lines), but you can just think of it as pseudocode if you decide to write in another language. Interested? help@osmosian.com.

[Monty2]

Well the deleted message reads Score: 2.1 (3 votes) that probably means one voted 5 and two people voted 1 (they probably marked it as spam) only 2 people thats a bit harsh probably but with your record who knows ... :)

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If you think you can than you can, if you think you can't you are right.

[Pravarakhya]

I agree with you here[^]

Pravar My Image Processing Article! Rate it!! My Blog

[El Corazon]

CoffeeAddict19 wrote:

It dosen't need to be multiplatform (windows xp/2000/vista).

If it doesn't need to be multiplatform, or have the option for multi-platform, DirectX/Direct3D is the "fastest" solution from a performance standpoint. If you are going to use DirectX/Direct3D you might consider .Net. Of the choices you do offer, I would suggest OpenGL, but only because you restrict it to those options. You can suppliment your startup with some 3rd party libraries that simplify your work: Open Scene Graph[^] nVidia Scene Graph[^] or another scene graph of your choice (there are dozens if you want to expand the question). nVidia scene graph is handy because it is optimized for a hardware set, but then you are making it performance optimized for nVidia hardware and slower on ATI.

_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

[CoffeeAddict19]

WTF happened?:confused:

[El Corazon]

CoffeeAddict19 wrote:

WTF happened?

Full discussion here.[^] Right or wrong, we have a salesman who refuses to obey the no-advertising rule of the site because he does not believe it. Right or wrong he has a product that he likes to reference in any post related to programming. Right or wrong he has been around a while, posted many posts referencing his product, been admonished by members and owners to stop spamming the site. His answer is there for you to read and make your own decision. -- modified at 12:53 Monday 8th January, 2007

_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

[123 0]

CoffeeAddict19 wrote:

I'm thinking about writing a simple 2D CAD drawing program. It won't have anything near the complexity of a commercial CAD program, essentially it'll be a sophisticated vector based clone of MS Paint. It dosen't need to be multiplatform (windows xp/2000/vista). My question is, which graphics API or GUI would you recommend? MFC/GDI+, Qt4, OpenGL, DirectX, SDL? The only thing I won't use is .NET.

I'm sorry if you've already seen this, CoffeeAddict19, but the mob keeps deleting it. I think it's a good offer, even if you just glance at our solution to the problem and throw it away. I can almost guarantee you'll get some ideas out of it. We used straight GDI for the bulk of the wysiwyg, vector-based page editor that is part of the development system we wrote, resorting to GDI+ only for the conversion functions that are missing in the old GDI (JPEG to BITMAP, for example). Our editor is simple and smooth and includes the usual graphics objects (rectangles, ellipses, lines, open and closed polygons, etc), plus text (in different fonts, styles, and colors) and pictures (which can be sized, cropped, rotated, mirrored, and flipped); it also supports grouping of objects (to any depth), various units of measure, snap grids, reduction, enlargement, multiple pages in different orientations, and it saves everything in ascii text. The interface is unique: it is modeless, and has none of the usual "tools"; nevertheless, it is easy to learn and very easy to use. I'd be glad to send you a copy, with source code, to give you some ideas - it's written in Plain English (about 4300 lines), but you can just think of it as pseudocode if you decide to write in another language. Interested? help@osmosian.com.

[Lost User]

Take a look at this[^] article and the others by this author. Elaine :rose:

The tigress is here :-D

[Chris S Kaiser]

And here's a funny too: Clickety Reference to not spamming anymore.[^]

What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder

[123 0]

CoffeeAddict19 wrote:

I'm thinking about writing a simple 2D CAD drawing program. It won't have anything near the complexity of a commercial CAD program, essentially it'll be a sophisticated vector based clone of MS Paint. It dosen't need to be multiplatform (windows xp/2000/vista). My question is, which graphics API or GUI would you recommend? MFC/GDI+, Qt4, OpenGL, DirectX, SDL? The only thing I won't use is .NET.

Again, I apologize if you've already seen this. It keeps getting deleted. We used straight GDI for the bulk of the wysiwyg, vector-based page editor that is part of the development system we wrote, resorting to GDI+ only for the conversion functions that are missing in the old GDI (JPEG to BITMAP, for example). Our editor is simple and smooth and includes the usual graphics objects (rectangles, ellipses, lines, open and closed polygons, etc), plus text (in different fonts, styles, and colors) and pictures (which can be sized, cropped, rotated, mirrored, and flipped); it also supports grouping of objects (to any depth), various units of measure, snap grids, reduction, enlargement, multiple pages in different orientations, and it saves everything in ascii text. The interface is unique: it is modeless, and has none of the usual "tools"; nevertheless, it is easy to learn and very easy to use. I'd be glad to send you a copy, with source code, to give you some ideas - it's written in Plain English (about 4300 lines), but you can just think of it as pseudocode if you decide to write in another language. Interested? help@osmosian.com.