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Graphics and Drawing in Windows Forms

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The common language runtime uses an advanced implementation of the Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI) called GDI+. With GDI+ you can create graphics, draw text, and manipulate graphical images as objects. GDI+ is designed to offer performance and ease of use. You can use GDI+ to render graphical images on Windows Forms and controls. Although you cannot use GDI+ directly on Web Forms, you can display graphical images through the Image Web Server control.

In this section, you will find topics that introduce the fundamentals of GDI+ programming. Although not intended to be a comprehensive reference, this section includes information about the Graphics, Pen, Brush, and Color objects, and explains how to perform such tasks as drawing shapes, drawing text, or displaying images. For more information, see GDI+ Reference.

If you'd like to jump in and get started right away, see Getting Started with Graphics Programming. It has topics on how to use code to draw lines, shapes, text, and more on Windows forms.

In This Section

Graphics Overview
Provides an introduction to the graphics-related managed classes.

About GDI+ Managed Code
Provides information about the managed GDI+ classes.

Using Managed Graphics Classes
Demonstrates how to complete a variety of tasks using the GDI+ managed classes.

Reference

System.Drawing
Provides access to GDI+ basic graphics functionality.

System.Drawing.Drawing2D
Provides advanced two-dimensional and vector graphics functionality.

System.Drawing.Imaging
Provides advanced GDI+ imaging functionality.

System.Drawing.Text
Provides advanced GDI+ typography functionality. The classes in this namespace can be used to create and use collections of fonts.

System.Drawing.Printing
Provides printing functionality.

Custom Control Painting and Rendering
Details how to provide code for painting controls.