Chapter 3.7

Graphics Rendering

"If you happen to be one of the fretful minority who can do creative work, never force an idea... Be patient and you'll give birth to it when the time is ripe. Learn to wait."

Graphics rendering and generation is a fairly popular topic in Lisp, and as such there are a number of libraries already available to assist the developer, from vector art to procedurally generated 3D worlds. Naturally, there are also libraries available for manipulating bitmap image formats, and converting between vector and bitmap images, so that you can process your images in a number of ways, such as with photo filters.

A natural extension to this topic is the visualization of data---you could simply plot your data on a graph, but sometimes you want something more dynamic and engaging. Lisp is a very useful ally in this task.

In this chapter we will explore various methods for generating both vector and bitmap image files; plotting complex data; and creating a simple paint application with a GUI.

Exercise 3.7.1

Vector Graphics with VECTO

Exercise 3.7.2

More VECTO

Exercise 3.7.3

Even More VECTO

Exercise 3.7.4

Raster Graphics with CL-PNG

Exercise 3.7.5

More CL-PNG

Exercise 3.7.6

Even More CL-PNG

Exercise 3.7.7

Plotting Data with VECTO

Exercise 3.7.8

Plotting Data with CL-PLplot

Exercise 3.7.9

Plotting Data for the Web

Project 3.7.10

A Web-Based Data Plotting Service

Project 3.7.11

A Simple Paint Application with VECTO and Qtools