The graphics library

This chapter describes the portable graphics primitives that come standard in the implementation of Caml Light on micro-computers.

Unix:: On Unix workstations running the X11 windows system, an implementation of the graphics primitives is available in the directory contrib/libgraph in the distribution. See the file README in this directory for information on building and using camlgraph, a toplevel system that includes the graphics primitives, and linking standalone programs with the library. Drawing takes place in a separate window that is created when open_graph is called.

Mac:: The graphics primitive are available from the standalone application that runs the toplevel system. They are not available from programs compiled by camlc and run under the MPW shell. Drawing takes place in a separate window, that can be made visible with the ``Show graphics window'' menu entry.

PC:: The graphics primitive are available from the Windows application that runs the toplevel system. They are not available from programs compiled by camlc and run in a DOS command window. Drawing takes place in a separate window.

The screen coordinates are interpreted as shown in the figure below. Notice that the coordinate system used is the same as in mathematics: y increases from the bottom of the screen to the top of the screen, and angles are measured counterclockwise (in degrees). Drawing is clipped to the screen. Here are the graphics mode specifications supported by open_graph on the various implementations of this library.

Unix:

The argument to open_graph has the format "display-name geometry", where display-name is the name of the X-windows display to connect to, and geometry is a standard X-windows geometry specification. The two components are separated by a space. Either can be omitted, or both. Examples:

open_graph "foo:0": connects to the display foo:0 and creates a window with the default geometry
open_graph "foo:0 300x100+50-0": connects to the display foo:0 and creates a window 300 pixels wide by 100 pixels tall, at location (50,0)
open_graph " 300x100+50-0": connects to the default display and creates a window 300 pixels wide by 100 pixels tall, at location (50,0)
open_graph "": connects to the default display and creates a window with the default geometry.

Mac:: The argument to open_graph is ignored.

PC:: The argument to open_graph has the format "widthxheight" or "widthxheight+x+y", where width and height are the initial dimensions of the graphics windows, and x and y are the position of the upper-left corner of the graphics window. If omitted, (width,height) default to (600,400) and (x,y) default to (10, 10).

`graphics`: machine-independent graphics primitives

exception Graphic_failure of string

Raised by the functions below when they encounter an error.

Initializations

value open_graph: string -> unit

Show the graphics window or switch the screen to graphic mode. The graphics window is cleared. The string argument is used to pass optional information on the desired graphics mode, the graphics window size, and so on. Its interpretation is implementation-dependent. If the empty string is given, a sensible default is selected.

value close_graph: unit -> unit

Delete the graphics window or switch the screen back to text mode.

value clear_graph : unit -> unit

Erase the graphics window.

value size_x : unit -> int
value size_y : unit -> int

Return the size of the graphics window. Coordinates of the screen pixels range over 0 .. size_x()-1 and 0 .. size_y()-1. Drawings outside of this rectangle are clipped, without causing an error. The origin (0,0) is at the lower left corner.

Colors

type color == int

A color is specified by its R, G, B components. Each component is in the range 0..255. The three components are packed in an int: 0xRRGGBB, where RR are the two hexadecimal digits for the red component, GG for the green component, BB for the blue component.

value rgb: int -> int -> int -> color

rgb r g b returns the integer encoding the color with red component r, green component g, and blue component b. r, g and b are in the range 0..255.

value set_color : color -> unit

Set the current drawing color.

value black : color
value white : color
value red : color
value green : color
value blue : color
value yellow : color
value cyan : color
value magenta : color

Some predefined colors.

value background: color
value foreground: color

Default background and foreground colors (usually, either black foreground on a white background or white foreground on a black background). clear_graph fills the screen with the background color. The initial drawing color is foreground.

Point and line drawing

value plot : int -> int -> unit

Plot the given point with the current drawing color.

value point_color : int -> int -> color

Return the color of the given point.

value moveto : int -> int -> unit

Position the current point.

value current_point : unit -> int * int

Return the position of the current point.

value lineto : int -> int -> unit

Draw a line with endpoints the current point and the given point, and move the current point to the given point.

value draw_arc : int -> int -> int -> int -> int -> int -> unit

draw_arc x y rx ry a1 a2 draws an elliptical arc with center x,y, horizontal radius rx, vertical radius ry, from angle a1 to angle a2 (in degrees). The current point is unchanged.

value draw_ellipse : int -> int -> int -> int -> unit

draw_ellipse x y rx ry draws an ellipse with center x,y, horizontal radius rx and vertical radius ry. The current point is unchanged.

value draw_circle : int -> int -> int -> unit

draw_circle x y r draws a circle with center x,y and radius r. The current point is unchanged.

value set_line_width : int -> unit

Set the width of points and lines drawn with the functions above. Under X Windows, set_line_width 0 selects a width of 1 pixel and a faster, but less precise drawing algorithm than the one used when set_line_width 1 is specified.

Text drawing

value draw_char : char -> unit
value draw_string : string -> unit

Draw a character or a character string with lower left corner at current position. After drawing, the current position is set to the lower right corner of the text drawn.

value set_font : string -> unit
value set_text_size : int -> unit

Set the font and character size used for drawing text. The interpretation of the arguments to set_font and set_text_size is implementation-dependent.

value text_size : string -> int * int

Return the dimensions of the given text, if it were drawn with the current font and size.

Filling

value fill_rect : int -> int -> int -> int -> unit

fill_rect x y w h fills the rectangle with lower left corner at x,y, width w and heigth h, with the current color.

value fill_poly : (int * int) vect -> unit

Fill the given polygon with the current color. The array contains the coordinates of the vertices of the polygon.

value fill_arc : int -> int -> int -> int -> int -> int -> unit

Fill an elliptical pie slice with the current color. The parameters are the same as for draw_arc.

value fill_ellipse : int -> int -> int -> int -> unit

Fill an ellipse with the current color. The parameters are the same as for draw_ellipse.

value fill_circle : int -> int -> int -> unit

Fill a circle with the current color. The parameters are the same as for draw_circle.

Images

type image

The abstract type for images, in internal representation. Externally, images are represented as matrices of colors.

value transp : color

In matrices of colors, this color represent a ``transparent'' point: when drawing the corresponding image, all pixels on the screen corresponding to a transparent pixel in the image will not be modified, while other points will be set to the color of the corresponding point in the image. This allows superimposing an image over an existing background.

value make_image : color vect vect -> image

Convert the given color matrix to an image. Each sub-array represents one horizontal line. All sub-arrays must have the same length; otherwise, exception Graphic_failure is raised.

value dump_image : image -> color vect vect

Convert an image to a color matrix.

value draw_image : image -> int -> int -> unit

Draw the given image with lower left corner at the given point.

value get_image : int -> int -> int -> int -> image

Capture the contents of a rectangle on the screen as an image. The parameters are the same as for fill_rect.

value create_image : int -> int -> image

create_image w h returns a new image w pixels wide and h pixels tall, to be used in conjunction with blit_image. The initial image contents are random.

value blit_image : image -> int -> int -> unit

blit_image img x y copies screen pixels into the image img, modifying img in-place. The pixels copied are those inside the rectangle with lower left corner at x,y, and width and height equal to those of the image.

Mouse and keyboard events

type status =
  { mouse_x : int;              (* X coordinate of the mouse *)
    mouse_y : int;              (* Y coordinate of the mouse *)
    button : bool;              (* true if a mouse button is pressed *)
    keypressed : bool;          (* true if a key has been pressed *)
    key : char }                (* the character for the key pressed *)

To report events.

type event =
    Button_down                 (* A mouse button is pressed *)
  | Button_up                   (* A mouse button is released *)
  | Key_pressed                 (* A key is pressed *)
  | Mouse_motion                (* The mouse is moved *)
  | Poll                        (* Don't wait; return immediately *)

To specify events to wait for.

value wait_next_event : event list -> status

Wait until one of the events specified in the given event list occurs, and return the status of the mouse and keyboard at that time. If Poll is given in the event list, return immediately with the current status. If the mouse cursor is outside of the graphics window, the mouse_x and mouse_y fields of the event are outside the range 0..size_x()-1, 0..size_y()-1. Keypresses are queued, and dequeued one by one when the Key_pressed event is specified.

Mouse and keyboard polling

value mouse_pos : unit -> int * int

Return the position of the mouse cursor, relative to the graphics window. If the mouse cursor is outside of the graphics window, mouse_pos() returns a point outside of the range 0..size_x()-1, 0..size_y()-1.

value button_down : unit -> bool

Return true if the mouse button is pressed, false otherwise.

value read_key : unit -> char

Wait for a key to be pressed, and return the corresponding character. Keypresses are queued.

value key_pressed : unit -> bool

Return true if a keypress is available; that is, if read_key would not block.

Sound

value sound : int -> int -> unit

sound freq dur plays a sound at frequency freq (in hertz) for a duration dur (in milliseconds). On the Macintosh, the frequency is rounded to the nearest note in the equal-tempered scale.