Implementing Annotations

Annotations are based on vectored drawing functions and are associated with bitmaps as an overlay of the displayed image. LEADTOOLS supports a number of annotation types, including lines, rectangles, audio clips, hotspots, redact objects, polygons, and containers. A container is a specialized annotation object that lets you position and group other annotation objects, including other container objects. For a full list of available annotation types, refer to Types of Annotations.

LEADTOOLS maintains annotations separately from bitmaps. Your application code is responsible for maintaining the relationships between images and annotations. For example, the annotation example that ships with LEADTOOLS, creates an annotation file that has the same name as its associated image file, but with a different extension. When the image file is loaded, the program looks for an associated annotation file and loads it as well.

The functions supported by LEADTOOLS let you create automated annotations or non-automated annotations, depending on your application's requirements.

Automated Annotations

Automated annotations require an automation object to be associated with the top-level container, also known as the root container. This automation object lets you maintain default properties for all objects in the root container. For example, you can use it to set the default font and the default line width. Keep in mind, however, that scaling factors affect the appearance of these default measurements. The values are set based on the scaling factors that are in effect at the time you create the object. Features associated with automated annotations are:

You can implement the automation using only a few supporting functions.

Notes:

For information on creating an automated annotation program, refer to Implementing an Automated Annotation Program and Using Automated Annotations in Run Mode.

Non-automated Annotations

Non-automated annotations allow you to customize the creation of and interaction with annotations to suit your own needs. Any LEADTOOLS annotation function, except those requiring an automation object, can be used when working with non-automated annotations. When programming non-automated annotations, it is important to remember:

For information on creating a non-automated annotation program, refer to Implementing a Non-automated Annotation Program and Using Non-automated Annotations in Run Mode.

For a list of functions pertaining to various aspects of implementing annotations, refer to:

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