Introduction

The LEADTOOLS DigitalPaint API provides dynamic link library (DLL) functions to let you incorporate Paint capabilities into your Windows applications. The Digital Paint features are available in the Raster Pro and above toolkits.

The DigitalPaint tools provide the functions necessary for to write a painting program or any painting related application.

The painting output can be painted to a device context (DC), a bitmap, or both. In addition, there LEADTOOLS DigitalPaint provides the option of color restriction, using an optional restriction palette.

The painting tools consist of five groups that represent five different paint abilities. Each of these "groups" has group specific functions. These groups are:

$image\sqrblit.gif$ Paintbrush group.

$image\sqrblit.gif$ Shape group.

$image\sqrblit.gif$ Region group.

$image\sqrblit.gif$ Fill group.

$image\sqrblit.gif$ Text group.

Every group has its own features that will enable the user to manipulate the final results of that group.

Paintbrush group

The LEADTOOLS DigitalPaint paintbrush has most of the features found in any artistic painting program. The resulting paintbrush will be translated and scaled automatically for the device context and/or the bitmap, using user-defined transformation settings.

Shape group

The LEADTOOLS DigitalPaint shape group removes some of the Windows API programming when drawing shapes. In addition, shapes may be painted with varying degrees of opacity, or with a paper texture, or with a gradient background, etc. The resulting shapes will be translated and scaled automatically for the device context and/or the bitmap, using user-defined transformation settings.

This group has the ability to draw the following shapes:

Line, Rectangle, Rounded rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, Polybezier.

Region group

The region group has the ability to create regions ranging from simple to very complex (many of them are not supported by Windows). The Digital Paint products also includes the ability to scale a region, which is not supported directly by Windows. The resulting regions will be translated and scaled automatically for the device context (DC) and/or the bitmap, using user-defined transformation settings.

Region types that can be created by the toolkit:

Region creation using the following shapes:

Rectangle, Rounded rectangle, Ellipse and Polygon.

Region creation using the following fill methods

Surface, Border and Color Replacement.

Fill group

LEADTOOLS DigitalPaint gives the user the most complete area filling solutions in both the method of filling and the features of filling. The resulting filled area will be translated and scaled automatically for the device context (DC) and/or the bitmap, using user-defined transformation settings.

Fill group filling methods

Surface, Border and Color replace.

Surface fill method

Fills an area, starting at a specified point and continuing in all directions, that contains a specified color. A tolerance range can also be set to accept colors very close in value to the specified color.

Border fill method

Fills an area, starting at a specified point and continuing in all directions until finding a specified color. A tolerance range can also be set to stop filling when colors very close in value to the specified color are found.

Color replace

Replaces every pixel using the current fill settings.

Text group

This group includes comprehensive text drawing features that can be found in any painting program. The resulting text will be translated and scaled automatically for the device context (DC) and/or the bitmap, using user-defined transformation settings.

The LEADTOOLS Digital Paint products does not copy data passed to a DigitalPaint function by the user, but uses the data directly. Therefore, the data supplied by the user must remain valid for as long as the data is needed. For example, if a palette handle is passed to a DIgitalPaint function, the toolkit uses this handle to access the palette. The toolkit does NOT make a copy of the handle or the palette. Therefore, if the palette handle provided by the use is destroyed, the toolkit's palette handle is also destroyed and the toolkit will have an invalid palette handle.

The toolkit comes in WIN32 editions so that it can support development of software applications for any of the following environments:

Windows 4.x NT
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows 2000

Please note that if you have purchased an eval version of a LEADTOOLS toolkit, this help file contains the same information as the help file included in the standard release toolkit. Consequently, references to the .DLL and .LIB files contain an N designation. The .DLL and .LIB files included with the evaluation toolkit contain an E designation. Therefore, any references in the help file to xx14N.DLL or xx_N.LIB files refer to the corresponding xx14E.DLL or xx_E.LIB files. For example, if the help file refers to LTBAR14N.DLL, your corresponding file is LTBAR14E.DLL.