Using GDI+ with MFC or native C/C++

Download demo project - 25.4 Kb

Introduction

If you did a GDI+ sample query on Google, I bet you will get hundreds or thousands of URLs pointing you to a .NET free code. If you go book shop you will see dozens of books talking about GDI+. However, if you try to find information about integrating GDI+ with MFC/ATL/WTL, I bet you will find none (if you could, kindly post the URL!). So, is it impossible or so difficult that it doesn't worth using?

Findings

The answer is: Extremely easy to use GDI+ in MFC/ATL/WTL, or even straight C language. First, I have to admit I have no knowledge about .NET, I am not a fan of Microsoft .NET but rather prefer platform SDK. GDI+ IS NOT solely for .NET, if you plan to use GDI+ on Windows version lower than XP, then you would have to redistribute the GDI+ runtime (here). Don't worry, it is only 1.04 MB, not a xx MB .NET runtime.

So?

Add the following line to your stdafx.h

#include <gdiplus.h>
using namespace Gdiplus;
#pragma comment(lib, "gdiplus.lib")

Intialize the GDI+ resources. Add this to your CWinApp derived class as member:

GdiplusStartupInput gdiplusStartupInput;
ULONG_PTR gdiplusToken;

At InitInstance(), add:

GdiplusStartup(&gdiplusToken, &gdiplusStartupInput, NULL);

Your application is ready to consume GDI+ now.
Upon exit, release GDI+ resources. Add the following line to ExitInstance():
```
GdiplusShutdown(gdiplusToken);
```

As you can see, it is that simple. In general, it should be very easy to port your existing WIN32/MFC/WTL painting code into GDI+. If you ask why? Consider there is one GDI+ C++ class called RedEyeCorrection, that's right, to correct the red eyes that sometimes occur in flash photographs. If you have at least one year WIN32/MFC experiences, just follow the link here to see more.

I included a demo project to demonstrate the above. Enjoy!

GDI+ is device context handle centric, hence if you can split drawing logic aside from actual drawing code, you will have no problem in porting to GDI+. In some cases, 100 lines of drawing code can be reduced to just 5 lines with GDI+ intensive support of complex drawing exercises. This means mixing ordinary GDI with GDI+ a trivial task.

The downloaded project is a standard MFC SDI project, if you have read it (I hope so...), you will find that it is unbelievable simple. Nearly all time, you can simply cut-n-paste source code embedded in MSDN GDI+ to try things out. One tips: if the GDI+ need to load an external file, you can just right click the image in the help and save it, then continue to use the downloaded project to continue testing.

Finally, you do need to have a copy of platform SDK to have necessary GDI+ header, library at your VC search path. It is not necessary for the latest version, I am using version Aug'02. GDI+ files can be extracted from CAB_11, if you do not want to install the SDK.

** Don't forget to visit here for more information on integrating GDI+ with Win32/MFC/ATL/WTL **

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here

About the Author

Malaysia

Member

Article Top

Poor

Excellent

Add a reason or comment to your vote: x
Votes of 3 or less require a comment

Comments and Discussions

You must Sign In to use this message board. (secure sign-in)

Search this forum
	Profile popups Noise Layout Per page

Build samples with VS2010 [modified]

Will Stott

6:09 13 Sep '11

when building the sample with VS2010 you need to define in your project settings GDIPVER=0x0110
Project | MFC_GDI_PLUS Properties - C++ Preprocessor, Preprocessor Definitions

GDIPVER=0x0110 is GDI+ 1.1 which ships with Windows Vista (and later), but for installing your application on older versions of Windows you can get the latest GDI redistributable from Microsoft Downloads (see link)

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=18909[^]

modified on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 5:48 AM

Good Title, Excellent Sample

Momony

10:35 29 Apr '10

Despite what others may claim, finding a quick sample of the relevant include files and initialization code for gdiplus in mfc C++ was not trivial.

MSDN links broken or obsolete. MSDN search yielded nothing.

So, while there may be more detailed posts elsewhere, this one was short and to the point and solved the main problem of "what files do I have to include and how do I get access to gdiplus in an mfc project".

Cheers,

Re: Good Title, Excellent Sample

Theo Buys

2:24 10 Feb '11

The old MSDN links are broken or obsolete. But I found it here: msdn Library -> Windows Development -> Graphics and Multimedia -> GDI+ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms533798%28VS.85%29.aspx[^]
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

GDI+ inside DLL's

Member 2542308

8:57 7 Aug '08

If you are using GDI+ inside a DLL, you will probably have to suppress the background thread. You can do this by adding:

GdiplusStartupOutput gdiSO;

gdiSO.SuppressBackgroundThread = TRUE;

Just before the call to GdiplusStartup(...)

and also setting the notification hook, by using:

ULONG_PTR gdiHookToken;

gdiSO.NotificationHook(gdiHookToken);

and

gdiSO.NotificationUnhook(gdiHookToken);
just before GdiplusShutdown(...)

I was not able to register the DLL until I did these steps.

Re: GDI+ inside DLL's

Greg Prosch

6:30 10 Nov '08

Actually, that would need to be set on the GDI+ startup input object: GdiplusStartupInput gdiSI; gdiSI.SuppressBackgroundThread = TRUE;
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink	3.67/5 (2 votes)

Re: GDI+ inside DLL's

zl198547

1:02 15 Jul '09

Hi, everyone. In my dll project, I wanted to called the gdi+. But, it didn't work. Could you tell me how to deal with this problem as detailed as possible? Thanks.
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Re: GDI+ inside DLL's

Greg Prosch

5:56 15 Jul '09

Here's what you will need to do. In your DLL's source perform the following steps:

Add some member variables to your DLL's header:

// Variables for GDI+ resource management.

GdiplusStartupInput  m_gdiplusStartupInput;

GdiplusStartupOutput m_gdiplusStartupOutput;

ULONG_PTR            m_gdiplusToken;

ULONG_PTR            m_gdiplusHookToken;

Then, write code like this for your DLL's InitInstance:

// CImageModLibApp initialization

BOOL CMyLibApp::InitInstance()

{

	// Disable background thread since we are a DLL.

	m_gdiplusStartupInput.SuppressBackgroundThread = TRUE;

 

	// Initialize GDI+ resources.

	Gdiplus::Status status = GdiplusStartup(&m_gdiplusToken, &m_gdiplusStartupInput, &m_gdiplusStartupOutput);

 

	ASSERT(Ok == status);

 

	if(Ok != status)

	{

		LOG(Log::DBG2, "GDI+ Initialization Failure: " << status);

		return FALSE;

	}

 

	// Set the notification hooks since we are a DLL.

	m_gdiplusStartupOutput.NotificationHook(&m_gdiplusHookToken);

 

	CWinApp::InitInstance();

 

	return TRUE;

}

Finally, write something like this in your DLL's ExitInstance:

BOOL CMyLibApp::ExitInstance()

{

	// Release the GDI+ notification hook.

	m_gdiplusStartupOutput.NotificationUnhook(m_gdiplusHookToken);

 

	// Release GDI+ resources.

	GdiplusShutdown(m_gdiplusToken);

	

	CWinApp::ExitInstance();

 

	return TRUE;

}

Hopefully that will do the trick for you.

Greg

Bitmap - delete the object

Alex Evans

14:56 6 Feb '05

I started using GDI+ recently; here is some code sample which describes a problem I am facing

Bitmap * m_pSelectedImage;

// Create a Bitmap object
m_pSelectedImage = Bitmap::FromStream(m_pStream);

All my drawing etc happens here
..
…

At some point, I want to DELETE that file that the stream was created from

_unlink(“Image.jpg”); FAILS with a return -1, indicating a sharing violation

BUT I if I just LOAD the file from disk, then _unlink() it, it works fine, that is if the

// Create a Bitmap object
m_pSelectedImage = Bitmap::FromStream(m_pStream);

is NOT executed, although I am trying to delete and NUL the Bitmap object before calling _unlink();

delete m_pSelectedImage;
m_pSelectedImage = NULL;

Any help will be appreciated

Cheers
Alex

Re: Bitmap - delete the object

16:40 6 Feb '05

1. You can try WIN32 API ::DeleteFile().

2. Normally, how you create a stream out of a file:
2.1 Open file.
2.2 Get file size.
2.3 Create memory stream based on global handle with the size.
2.4 Copy the file content into the memory stream.
2.5 CLOSE THE FILE (Or you can delete now as the file is no longer open).
2.6 ...do your stuff.

3. On heavy usage scenario:
3.1 Create a simple COM object that implement IStream.
3.2 Implement IStream using file mapping API.
3.3 After all your stuff, at FinalRelease() (or any apppropriate), close the mapped file and just delete (or whatever...) it.

4. There are several other ways to do the same, such as Shell API or even issue system command.

Good day!

Re: Bitmap - delete the object

Alex Evans

9:25 7 Feb '05

Hello TW

Thanks for your explanation and details, I have resolved the problem in the mean time - the problem was in that I was creating TWO Bitmap pointers to the same file and only deleting one of them, hence the file on disk was still locked.

The way of actual deleting the file was NOT the problem (I could not even delete it while my function was executing by using Windows Explorer - it was locked by the 2nd instance of the Bitmap pointer.

Thanks again
Alex

thank very much. ^^

vpas

18:28 24 Jan '05

sincerely...
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Best GDI+ MFC Beginners article so far

TommYNandA

20:37 19 Nov '04

Thanks alot dude! TW... MSDN sucked big time.
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink	3.00/5 (4 votes)

To end this silly debate....

Tanzim Husain

18:15 19 Nov '03

Here's some quote from the GDI+ documentation in MSDN: Purpose Microsoft® Windows® GDI+ is a class-based application programming interface (API) for C/C++ programmers.... Developer Audience The GDI+ C++ class-based interface is designed for use by C/C++ programmers... Hmmm.... now can u dig that suckaaaa! Tanzim Husain
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink	2.00/5 (1 vote)

Do not want to debate, but...

Zhefu Zhang

15:11 10 Nov '03

I just came across here, and wonder why you check codeguru.com here: http://codeguru.com/gdi/index.shtml there are 11 C++ articles on GDI+ usage...
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

You wanted a URL?

Marc Clifton

2:39 8 Nov '03

Try: http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnnews/2001/sept/vcnet/vcnet.asp[^] Maybe the reason you can't find any articles is because it's so easy. Marc Latest AAL Article My blog Join my forum!
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink	2.00/5 (1 vote)

Re: You wanted a URL?

2:43 8 Nov '03

Are you some kind of stupid? You can readn't the link in the article? Well, typical Microsoft die hard fan, blind folded programmer.
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink	1.00/5 (1 vote)

Re: You wanted a URL?

Marc Clifton

2:47 8 Nov '03

TW wrote:
Are you some kind of stupid? You can readn't the link in the article? Well, typical Microsoft die hard fan, blind folded programmer.

I read the text in the article:

GDI+ is exposed through conventional C APIs, but there's also a set of C++ classes that encapsulates its functionality. Unfortunately, the GDI+ classes are not written in the style of MFC, instead they are named with the .NET Framework conventions. Nevertheless, they can be easily used in MFC apps. To use GDI+, you have to include the gdiplus.h header file and link with gdiplus.lib. You also have to initialize the library before calling any of its functions. The GDI+ feature can be easily redistributed. GDI+ is standard on Windows XP. For Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT® 4.0, and Windows 2000, you can simply copy GdiPlus.DLL into your app's directory.
GDI+ uses a different programming model from GDI. Instead of selecting brushes and pens into a device context, in GDI+ you pass the pen or brush into every drawing command. Graphics elements are no longer drawn with both the pen and brush together; they are outlined and filled using separate functions (such as DrawRectangle and FillRectangle).

And the example that followed. Seemed rather easy to use, to me.

Marc

Latest AAL Article
My blog
Join my forum!

Re: You wanted a URL?

vjedlicka

22:56 7 Dec '05

The links yields this: Location Cannot Be Found We apologize for the inconvenience, but the location you are seeking cannot be found. If you are looking for a particular document, please try one of the following areas: Vaclav
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Re: You wanted a URL?

Theo Buys

2:16 10 Feb '11

Yes, I found it also hard to find. But I found it here: msdn Library -> Windows Development -> Graphics and Multimedia -> GDI+ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms533798%28VS.85%29.aspx[^]
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Re: You wanted a URL?

vjedlicka

2:32 10 Feb '11

Thanks
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

goods

Anonymous

21:21 14 Jun '03

it's good
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink	1.00/5 (1 vote)

Good but incomplete

Nicolas Bonamy

3:44 16 Apr '03

This is a good introduction but rather incomplete. I would like to see in the article more details on about mixing GDI and GDI+ calls in the same drawing routine like getting a Graphics object from a CDC* and things like that!
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink	5.00/5 (3 votes)

Why 99.9% of GDI+ samples...

Jim Crafton

7:42 15 Apr '03

Why are 99.9% of GDI+ samples in .NET language? Cause that's what MS wants you to use - Doh! C++ is for old people, with rickety minds, C# is for young, voluptuous, nubile thinkers... ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)!
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink	2.03/5 (12 votes)

Re: Why 99.9% of GDI+ samples...

Mario M.

9:44 15 Apr '03

.NET is a simple language, but for larger projects it is really a pain in the a**, you need to lots of DLLs and sub-projects for each control in order to be able to handle it. I tried a few times to make my projects using C#, but every time I messed up in the generated code.
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink	3.00/5 (6 votes)

Re: Why 99.9% of GDI+ samples...

Marc Clifton

2:19 8 Nov '03

Mario M. wrote:
.NET is a simple language

.NET is not a language.

And C# version 2.0 will be much richer than C++.

Mario M. wrote:
but for larger projects it is really a pain in the a**, you need to lots of DLLs and sub-projects for each control in order to be able to handle it.

For each control? Could you give an example? I rarely have to deal with references, unless they're to assemblies in my own project. I've never had a problem with this.

Marc

Latest AAL Article
My blog
Join my forum!