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Add WindowsForms PlotView based on SkiaSharp #1516
Description
As it has been years since I last worked with WindowsForms, if someone else feels like taking on this task, please go ahead.
Things to consider:
- Should this use GPU-accelerated rendering or not? Or both?
- There are controls for both available on SkiaSharp side.
- Do we need more dependencies with GPU acceleration?
- Can code be shared with
OxyPlot.WindowsForms? - Add an example browser / integrate into WindowsForms example browser?
Activity
VisualMelon commentedon May 12, 2020
Given this would have to write to a buffer and copy/swap, the rendering engine could be abstracted away completely. There is no reason e.g. the ImageSharp renderer could be swapped in as well. I had a go with Skia and ran into a couple of rendering issues (apart from hating the abstraction I built), but if this would be an acceptable design I would be happy to do the leg work. My first attempt (a bit out of date) can be found here: develop...VisualMelon:WinFormsSkia
I'd envisage adding an
IPlotPainterinterface to WinForms which writes to a bitmap (though, this could even be mediated through OxyImage, and be platform independent), and can be passed to thePlotViewas an alternative to the 'direct' renderer. There is no reason rendering can't be done off-thread to improve UX. This wouldn't be owned by thePlotView.The advantages of such a design would be:
PlotView)Obvious concerns
If we aren't sure this is bad idea yet, I'm equally happy to do the leg work so we can decide how much we hate it once it is working.
VisualMelon commentedon May 14, 2020
Just a thought on the question of whether additional renderers would be a good idea: yes: at the moment, it is a miserable experience reviewing the outputs of e.g.
ImageRenderContextfor ImageSharp because I can't just open an example browser. Adding anImageSharpPainterwould resolve this, and make it much easier to test them. (e.g. comparing between Skia and ImageSharp is a bit of a faff at the moment: if I could switch between them with a combo-box like we can at the moment between Skia and Wpf, that would make my life much better).Jonarw commentedon May 14, 2020
Interesting thought! It would for sure be nice to be able to view ImageSharp-rendered Plots in the ExampleBrowser.
I guess it would be nice to have this
IPlotPainterwork with anOxyImage, so it could also be used on other platforms (i.e. WPF). TheOxyPlot.SkiaSharp.WpfPlotViewin the end also just renders to an image and displays this.We can probably not use the hardware acceleration SkiaSharp offers this way, but I don't think this is a huge concern for now. As far as I know, render time is mostly dominated by transformations etc. in the plot model itself, not the actual rendering of the shapes.
VisualMelon commentedon May 14, 2020
It looks like
OxyImageisn't meant to be just a block of color, but it hasn't been touched since 2014. Would it make sense to abandon it's dreams of becoming a compact image representation with support for multiple encodings, and instead make it just a block of color so we can add a foundation levelIPainterwith methodvoid Paint(IPlotModel model, OxyImage image);to live alongsideIExporter? No reason we can't have a different interface, but since it's there...Jonarw commentedon May 15, 2020
I haven't really done much with
OxyImageto be honest. Is the functionality with the different encodings actually used anywhere?Alternatively we could keep this as is and create a new
OxyBitmapstruct/class which is just a 'block of color'.VisualMelon commentedon May 15, 2020
@Jonarw yeah, thinking about it that would be a much better idea, and would mean I can get on with implementing everything rather than trying to make decisions I can't make.
OxyBitmapit shall be.upics commentedon Mar 25, 2022
@VisualMelon @Jonarw it would be interesting to have an implementaion of this kind, mainly with graphic accelleration with opentk. Do you still take in consideration this develop ? Thank you
upics commentedon Apr 7, 2022
UPDATE: I have implemented the skiasharp with GL on oxyplot libraries, but i noticed that in a performance comparison,rendering is slower than simple system.drawing or skiasharp implemented by you @VisualMelon.
I'm still investigating to understand why.. i'm keeping updated this thread.