Magic Graphics

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Introduction

Have you ever wanted to move a specific part of your drawing in GDI+ and had to redraw the whole scene again?
With this library, you'll be manipulating your drawings as if they were alive!

Background

To be able to use this class, you only have to know a little bit about GDI+ in VB .NET or C#.

About Magic Graphics Project

This project was designed and developed by Abd Allah Diab; the project is designed to make drawing in .NET applications easier.

Moving shapes in a scene was very hard because you had to redraw the whole scene again with the shape in its new location, redrawing is a huge problem when you have to remember each shape's position and colors and so, rotating and scaling was also very hard.

Using this class, you can now easily move, rotate or scale your shapes by writing a single line, assume that r is a rectangle:

r.Move(New X, New Y)

The Structure of Magic Graphics

The namespace consists of:

1. IShape (any shape Interface)
2. Shape (base class for any shape)
3. ShapeContainer (a class that holds the shapes in it so you can draw, move, rotate and scale without redrawing the whole scene)
4. Ellipse, Rectangle and Lines (predefined shapes that you can use in your application)

IShape Structure

a. Methods

b. Properties

Shape Structure

The Shape class implements the IShape interface, but it has a Dispose method that accepts a Boolean value as a parameter that indicates whether to remove the shape from the container or not.

ShapeContainer Structure

a. Methods

b. Properties

c. Fields

Implementing Magic Graphics in your Application

Here's an example that shows how to draw an Ellipse and a Rectangle using Magic Graphics class:

    Imports System.Drawing
    Imports System.Drawing.Drawing2D
    ' Create a Form and put a PictureBox on it, 
    ' and put a Button to draw an ellipse and another to draw a rectangle.
    ' Now let's add a Timer to move and rotate, Timer1 (Interval = 100; Enabled = True).
    Public Class FormMain
        Dim SC As MagicGraphics.ShapeContainer
        Private Sub FormMain_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
			ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
            SC = New MagicGraphics.ShapeContainer(PictureBox1.CreateGraphics, _
			PictureBox1.Width, PictureBox1.Height, Color.Black)
            PictureBox1.Image = SC.BMP
            SC.AutoFlush = False
        End Sub
    
        Private Sub ButtonRectangle_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
			ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
            Dim Sq As New MagicGraphics.Rectangle(New Pen(Color.Black, 3), _
					Brushes.Aqua, 60, 20, 50, 50)
            Sq.FillingBrush = New Drawing2D.LinearGradientBrush(New Point(0, 0), _
				New Point(60, 0), Color.Yellow, Color.Red)
            SC.AddShape(Sq)
            'From here you can easily manipulate this Rectangle by refering to Sq.
        End Sub
    
        Private Sub ButtonEllipse_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
			ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
            Dim El As New MagicGraphics.Ellipse(New Pen(Color.Black, 3), _
					Brushes.Olive, 60, 88, 50, 71)
            El.FillingBrush = New Drawing2D.LinearGradientBrush(New Point(0, 0), _
				New Point(30, 0), Color.Red , Color.SteelBlue)
            SC.AddShape(El)
            'From here you can easily manipulate this Ellipse by refering to El.
        End Sub
    
        Private Sub Timer1_Tick(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
			ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Tick
            If SC.ShapesL.Count = 0 Then Exit Sub
            For Each shp As MagicGraphics.Shape In SC.ShapesL
                shp.Rotate(10) 'Rotates every shape in this container by 10 degrees.
                shp.Move(shp.Location.X + 1, shp.Location.Y + 1) 'Offsets every shape 
		' in this container by 1 pixel on X axis, and 1 pixel on Y axis.
            Next    
        End Sub
    End Class   

The result must be something that looks like the picture above.

Custom Shapes

This class lets you design your own shapes by inheriting the base class Shape. You must write the Render sub (void) and the ToString function. You can add properties, events and other things to your shapes and have a great library of your own shapes.

Summary

This class, as you've seen, is very easy to implement and use, and it really saves a lot of time in redrawing.

Have fun and happy drawing.