Aurigma Graphics Mill for .NET

Graphics Mill for .NET is an SDK for developers who need image manipulation and related functionality for their applications, Web or Desktop.

The SDK includes everything necessary to develop professional applications, saving your time and effort.

You will be able to implement rich image processing functionality: draw shapes, text, bitmaps (arranging those objects into layers), save and load from all popular image file formats (including PSD read support), convert between different color spaces in real time, use color management profiles (including Adobe CMM), apply various transforms, artistic effects and filters, perform color correction and adjustment, do red-eye effect removal, work with videos and image metadata and do a lot more.

This way, you can build various solutions:

• web to print solutions, print imaging solutions
• document imaging solutions, template-based content creators
• online photo editors, brochures and business card editors
• ... lots of other solutions.

Graphics Mill is optimized to provide performance in web and desktop applications. This is achieved through multiple ways:

• memory-friendly implementation
• x64 version for utilizing virtually unlimited system memory
• optimization for multiple core CPUs and multiple CPU systems
• multithreading optimization
• unmanaged code portions in performance-critical algorithms
• AJAX-based controls for Web.

The imaging functionality provided by Graphics Mill is leveraged with off-the-peg controls that come with the SDK. This way you don't need to develop your own controls.

AJAX for ASP.NET 2.0 Controls

Typically, we want to implement desktop-like imaging capabilities for Web without sacrificing performance. Advanced AJAX Vector Objects controls provide extra imaging capabilities directly through web browsers. For enhanced performance in web apps, Graphics Mill has an AJAX viewport control.

AJAX Vector Objects

With AJAX vector objects controls, end users can draw text and shapes directly on the canvas in web browser. The shapes and text can be freely dragged and dropped on the canvas just like in desktop apps. The controls allow for arranging multiple objects into layers.

Also, these controls enable users to apply fills to the shapes and draw text in different colors as well as change font type, size and weight, etc. (see the above screenshot for general idea).

AJAX Viewport Control

When displaying images, the AJAX viewport control downloads and/or crops only the visible part of the image. Viewed image areas are cached at the client. When downloading an image area to the viewport, a low-quality area preview is displayed. This way, the end user can start viewing a huge image right away, before it has been fully downloaded from server.

The control is able to zoom using multiple zooming techniques. The control also supports rubber-band rectangular selection. You can dim the portion of the image outside of the selection (especially handy when cropping).

Remote Scripting

Graphics Mill implements a remote scripting mechanism which enables you to run server code from JavaScript without roundtrips (also known as AJAX). This makes highly interactive web image editors possible even for slow connections.

WinForms Controls

Desktop applications that handle images meant for printing typically consume huge amounts of memory. That's why Graphics Mill WinForms controls have memory-friendly implementation. Also, if imaging operations still require more memory, you can use Graphics Mill x64 on x64 platforms. This ensures that you never get 'out of memory' messages with your apps that use Graphics Mill x64.

Multi-layer Image Control

Such solutions as photo editors, template-based content creators, annotation tools, etc. need to work with multiple overlapping objects (such as images and text) in the same document. To implement this, you need a multilayer image manipulation control.

Graphics Mill has a multi-layer image control which allows for handling composite images (e.g. several photos inside a postcard template, or vector image which consists of different objects like rectangles, ellipses, lines, etc).

You can place multiple objects into each layer (setting arbitrary Z-order): bitmaps, shapes, multiline text, your custom objects. Objects can be easily transformed by the end user (using a mouse, by dragging the object or one of its control point) and united into groups. Custom actions can be implemented for custom objects, undo and redo operations are available. You can hide layers and lock objects to prevent their modification. The content of the control can be serialized, say, into a file, and then restored from a file.

Thumbnail List Control

Some applications need more customizable file browsing capabilities than offerred by standard means. Graphics Mill offers a control that provides great flexibility, in the meanwhile offering fast generation of thumbnails for image files.

With Thumbnail List control, you can choose between four view modes, dynamically add/remove list items, implement your own kinds of list items (e.g. images stored in database, or in memory), sort and arrange items, display a checkbox and an editable label for each item. Thumbnails and other list item data can be loaded asynchronously.

Printing Control

Printout is a very important task in the entire workflow. Graphics Mill provides a memory-friendly control that implements printing and most demanded pre-print preparation tasks: printing of multipage TIFF files, printing of image sets (single image on each page, multiple images on each page), optimized placement of multiple images onto a page, automatic handling of a printed image's physical size and position (auto resizing, auto cropping, auto centering, proper handling of portrait/landscape orientation), footer and header captions. The printing control can be integrated with the standard .NET print dialog.

Add-ons

Graphics Mill has add-ons that enhance the base functionality. This way, you can build even a wider range of applications that manipulate various types of media, including audio and video files.

Advanced PSD Add-on

This add-on is able to read PSD templates and insert personalized content into them. For example, you have a brochure in PSD and want to insert text in different languages into it. With Advanced PSD add-on, you can develop an app that will read a PSD template and insert formatted text (or custom images) where appropriate, preparing the result for preview and printing (see demo).

AVI Processor Add-on

This add-on enables Graphics Mill to handle videos: extract, add and watermark frames, extract and add audio tracks, apply transition effects, specify encoding options (framerate, compression, quality, etc.). With this add-on, you can create solutions that streamline video content processing and editing in various ways: split and merge movies, turn movies into slideshows, put logos onto frames, etc.

Media Processor Add-on

With Media Processor, your application can retrieve metadata from audio and video files and do much more.

For more details regarding the Graphics Mill functionality, you can visit the product page.

Graphics Mill comes with a detailed documentation with full class library reference. Access to online technical support is given upon registration. The imaging SDK features samples that illustrate most typical usages in C# and VB.NET. Samples include Web and Desktop applications.

Also, you might want to view web demos to see Graphics Mill in action online.