Cairo

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About

Cairo is a FLOSS graphics library with multiple backends, that provides a vector-based device-independent API for software developers. Currently it has backends that support output to the X Window System, OpenGL contexts (via Glitz), local image buffers and PNG files. Future backends are planned that will support output to PDF, PostScript and SVG files. Cairo is designed to use hardware-acceleration when available.

Cairo was started by Keith Packard and Carl Worth for use in the X Window System. It was originally called Xr or Xr/Xc.

Cairo is intended to compete with similar technologies such as WPF from Microsoft and Quartz from Apple Computer.

High-profile usage

There are also plans to use Cairo as the graphics backend for Gecko-based browsers starting with version 1.9, for both the web page content and the user interface. Gecko 1.8, used in Firefox 1.5, uses Cairo to display SVG and canvas.

Version 2.8 of GTK+, released August 13, 2005, includes Cairo support.

See also

External links

• Cairo Home
• Linux.Ars: Cairo here, there and everywhere
• Writing a Widget Using Cairo and GTK+2.8