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I'm using GDI+ in my application, and I need to use a rotated LinearGradientBrush to paint several rects in the exact same way. However, although I'm calling the same code to fill each rect, the results aren't what I expect. Here's the code to create the gradient fill, where rcDraw is the rect containing the area to paint for each rect. These coordinates are in the parent window's coordinates, so they are not identical for the 2 rects.

g_hbrLinear = new LinearGradientBrush( Rect( 0, rcDraw.top, 0, rcDraw.bottom - rcDraw.top ), clrStart, clrEnd, (REAL) 80, FALSE );

What I see on screen looks like this (http://www.nnanime.com/bugs/LinGradBrush-rotate10.png). You can see that it's as if the fill from the first rect continues into the second one. What I really want is to have the 2 rects look identical. I think I can do that if I paint each rect separately using its own client coordinates, but for the purposes of my app, I need to use the parent window's coordinates.

I guess what I'm asking is, how does GDI+ calculate the "origin" of a fill? Is it always based on 0,0 in the coordinate system you use? Is there a way to shift it? I tried TranslateTransform, but it doesn't seem to shift the fill in a way that I find predictable or understandable.

tshepang
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Warner Young
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2 Answers2

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My experience with the "transform" of linear gradient brushes matches yours; I haven't been able to understand what it's supposed to do.

You can think of a brush in GDI+ as a function mapping world co-ordinates to a color. What the brush looks like at a given point does not change based on the shape being filled.

It does change with the transform of the Graphics object you're drawing on. So, if you don't want to change the brush, you could temporarily change the transform of the Graphics object so that the rectangle you're drawing has a specific, known size and position in world coordinates. The BeginContainer and EndContainer methods should make this easy.

(There is also the RenderingOrigin property but it only affects hatch brushes, which oddly are unaffected by world transforms.)

Esme Povirk
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The rect passed to the linear gradient brush determines the where the left and right colors will sit, and the gradient will be painted within this rectangle.

So, I think you need to create a brush for each rectangle you are painting, where the rectangle you are painting is also passed to the constructor for the linear gradient brush.

Nick
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  • Nick, thanks, but that's basically what I'm doing already. I pasted the wrong code in my question. The correct code should have rcDraw.left for the left side of rect, and 1 for the width. This still produces the same type of result: it looks like 1 repeating fill that spans all the rects. – Warner Young Nov 18 '10 at 19:37