Drawing Shapes in WPF

Mahesh Chand
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Drawing Shapes in WPF

This article is an introduction to graphics programming in XAML and WPF. In this article, I discuss various graphics objects including lines, rectangles, ellipses, and paths and how to draw them using XAML and WPF.

Drawing a Line

The Line tag of XAML draws a line. The X1,Y1 and X2,Y2 attributes represent the starting and ending point of the line and Stroke represents the color of the line. The StrokeThickness attribute represents the thickness of the line.

The following code draws a line from point (100,100) t (300,100) with blue color and thickness is 2.

<Line Stroke="#000fff" StrokeThickness="2" X1="100" Y1="100"

X2="300" Y2="100"/>

The output looks like Figure 1.

Figure 1. Drawing a line

Drawing and Filling a Rectangle

The Rectangle tag of XAML draws a rectangle. The Height and Width attributes represent the height and width of the rectangle. The Stroke and StrokeThickness represents the color and thickness of the rectangle boundary.

The following code draws a rectangle with height 100 and width 300.

</Rectangle>

The output looks like Figure 2.

Figure 2. Drawing a rectangle

The Fill attributes fill a rectangle with a color. The following code fills a rectangle with yellow color.

Rectangle Fill="Yellow" Width="300" Height="100" Stroke="Blue"

StrokeThickness="5">

</Rectangle>

The output looks like Figure 3.

Figure 3. Filling a rectangle

By setting RadiusX and RadiusY attributes, you can also draw a rectangle with rounded corners.

<Rectangle Width="120" Height="100" RadiusX="10" RadiusY="10"

Stroke="Green" StrokeThickness="5" Fill="Black">

</Rectangle>

The output looks like Figure 4.

Figure 4. Drawing a rounded rectangle

Drawing and Filling an Ellipse

The Ellipse tag of XAML draws an ellipse and circle (ellipse with equal height and width). The Height and Width attributes represent the height and width of the ellipse. The Stroke and StrokeThickness represents the color and thickness of the ellipse boundary. The Fill attribute fills the ellipse with a color.

The following code draws an ellipse with height 100 and width 300.

The output looks like Figure 5.

Figure 5. Drawing and Filling an Ellipse

Drawing and Filling a Path

The Path tag of XAML draws a path. The Data attribute of the Path represents various points in the path. Here M represents MoveTo command and C represents the absolute path. Capital H represents the LineTo command.

The following code draws a path.

The output looks like Figure 6.

Figure 6. Drawing a path

Similar to the rectangle and ellipse, the Fill attribute fills a path with a color.

<Path Data="M 200,40 C 50,90 200,250 200,75 H 480" Stroke="Black"

StrokeThickness="4" Fill="Yellow"/>

The output looks like Figure 7.

Figure 7. Filling a path

Drawing and Filling a Polygon

The <Polygon /> tag of XAML draws a ploygon. The Points attribute represents various points of the polygon.

The following code draws and fills a polygon.

The output looks like Figure 8.

Figure 8. Drawing and filling a polygon

Here is another example of a polygon.

<Polygon Points="100,0 75,75 100,100 125,75"

Stroke="Black" StrokeThickness="2" Fill="Yellow"/>

<Polygon Points="100,100 125,125 100,200 75,125"

Stroke="Yellow" StrokeThickness="2" Fill="Black"/>

<Polygon Points="100,100 125,75 200,100 125,125"

Stroke="Red" StrokeThickness="2" Fill="Blue"/>

<Polygon Points="100,100 75,125 0,100 75,75"

Stroke="Blue" StrokeThickness="2" Fill="Red"/>

The output looks like Figure 9.

Figure 9. Nice looking polygon

Drawing a Polyline

The <Polyline /> tag of XAML draws a ployline, which is a series of connected lines. Unlike a polygon, which is a closed curver, a polyline is usually an open curve. If you want to draw a series of connected lines but closed curve, you might want to use polygon.

Similar to the polygon, a polyline has Points attribute that defines the points of lines draw from and to. The following code draws a ployline.