Graphical Interfaces for C#

This paper is focused on a pure implementation task rather than in explanation of a general theory or specific graphical algorithms. However, the described solution seems to be interesting and useful to people within a computer graphics community. The reason is simple: there are many people using the OpenGL, Visualization Toolkit [1] (VTK) or DirectX, who want to benefit from .NET Framework features. Simply, it is a runtime environment, which hides the operating system layer to the application and unifies single machine and network environments into one (see [2]). Later, we will describe what a .NET Framework stands for in more detail.

The .NET Framework seemed to be very interesting for people from the area of computer graphics that we decided to implement some of the well-known graphical interfaces in it. The VTK, OpenGL and DirectX have been taken into account. These interfaces are widespread and having them prepared in the .NET Framework, it is easy to extend our old working algorithms with new features and functionality. For example, a developer used to write a code for OpenGL can simply continue with a development with it, build it in .NET Framework and easily add whatever other network functionality he wants.

We have implemented the VTK, OpenGL and DirectX interfaces for use within the .NET Framework. It fulfills well our objectives given at the early beginning. Now, graphics developers can also work with the fully object oriented programming (OOP) language C#. It allows more inheritance, deriving and polymorphism into the computer graphics.

Download pdf Graphical Interfaces for C#
http://www.cescg.org/CESCG-2003/MFrank/paper.pdf