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I'm looking for a library like Cairo, just far faster. It has to be a library that works with C or Python. It also would be nice if I could output to PNG, and SVG. I am looking at Qt's arthur, but that's C++, and I'm not a fan. Any suggestions?

Edit: another precondition is that it has to run under Linux.

Sargun Dhillon
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4 Answers4

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I don't know what's fast, but here's a rendering comparison.

Edit: Apparently Xara is supposed to be much faster than Cairo.

Eugene Yokota
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  • Unfortunately essential elements of Xara's renderer are not open-source. Great app, but their Linux effort seems to have died, sadly. – bobince Nov 15 '08 at 11:45
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Python has aggdraw

Ned Batchelder
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Google's Chrome browser and Android platform make use of their Skia vector library.

I heard second-hand that Vladimir Vukicevic has quickly ported Cairo to be able to use Skia. A quick googling seems to confirm it:

http://people.mozilla.com/~vladimir/misc/cairo-skia.patch

Not sure when or if this is mainstream, but I'd anticipate a major speed-up across the board!

Will
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  • Do you have a link to the Skia library's home page? – Sargun Dhillon Nov 17 '08 at 01:52
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    afraid not Sargun, but the code is online and there's some background at http://www.satine.org/archives/2008/09/02/skia-source-code-released/ I've heard its good at gradient fills and things, and I've seen in the code it has a GL backend for HW acceleration. Whats good on phones is also good on PCs – Will Nov 17 '08 at 18:38
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OpenGL?

It can do 2D pretty well. :)

Macke
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