<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/" xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its" type="topic" id="tech-cairo" xml:lang="fr">

  <info>

    <link type="guide" xref="tech" group="cairo"/>

    <revision pkgversion="3.0" date="2011-04-05" status="candidate"/>

    <credit type="author copyright">

      <name>Shaun McCance</name>

      <email its:translate="no">shaunm@gnome.org</email>

      <years>2011–2012</years>

    </credit>

    <include xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" href="cc-by-sa-3-0.xml"/>

    <desc>2D, vector-based drawing for high-quality graphics</desc>

  </info>

<title>Cairo</title>

Cairo is a 2D graphics library featuring a sophisticated API for

drawing vector graphics, compositing images, and rendering

anti-aliased text.  Cairo provides support for multiple output

devices, including the X Window System, Microsoft Windows, and image

buffers in memory, allowing you to write platform-independent code to

draw graphics on different media.

Cairo's drawing model is similar to those provided by PostScript

and PDF.  The Cairo API provides such drawing operations as stroking and

filling cubic Bézier splines, compositing images, and performing affine

transformations.  These vector operations allow for rich, anti-aliased

graphics.

Cairo's rich drawing model allows for high-quality rendering to

multiple media.  The same API can be used to create on-screen

graphics and text, to render images, or create crisp output suitable

for printing.

You should use Cairo whenever you need to draw graphics in your

application beyond the widgets provided by GTK+.  Almost all of the drawing

inside GTK+ is done using Cairo.  Using Cairo for your custom drawing

will allow your application to have high-quality, anti-aliased, and

resolution-independent graphics.

<list style="compact">

  <item>
<link href="http://www.cairographics.org/manual/">Cairo Manual</link>
</item>

  <item>
<link href="http://www.cairographics.org">The Cairo web site</link>
</item>

</list>

</page>