Skia Graphics Engine

Skia Graphics Engine
Original author(s)	Skia Inc.
Developer(s)	Google
Repository	skia.googlesource.com/skia ;
Written in	C++
Operating system	Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows
Type	Graphics library
License	New BSD License
Website	skia.org; skia.googlesource.com/skia

The Skia Graphics Engine is an open-source graphics library written in C++ which abstracts away platform-specific graphics API (which differ from one to another).^[1] Skia Inc. originally developed the library; Google acquired it in 2005,^[2] and then released the software as open source licensed under the New BSD free software license in 2008.

Library[]

Now known as Skia, the library is used as of 2021 in Google Chrome, Chrome OS, Chromium OS, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, Android, Firefox OS, LibreOffice (from version 7.0), Flutter and Avalonia (from Alpha 4). The Skia library is also present on the BlackBerry PlayBook, though the extent of its usage is unclear.

Skia supports several (platform-dependent) back-ends, including one for CPU-based software rasterization, one for Portable Document Format (PDF) output, and one for GPU-accelerated OpenGL, OpenGL ES, Vulkan, and Metal. Partially implemented back-ends (which may lack some features) are also available for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). Skia is most similar in purpose to Cairo or Pathfinder (meaning that it focuses on drawing) rather than to other more elaborate infrastructures like Qt that provide their own widgets etc.^[3]

Supported platforms[]

Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10
macOS 10.10.5 or later
iOS 8 or later
Android 4.1 (JellyBean) or later
Ubuntu 14.04+, Debian 8+, openSUSE 13.3+, or Fedora Linux 24+

References[]

^ "Skia Graphics Library". skia.org. Retrieved 2020-11-01.
^ Malik, Om (2 Sep 2008). "Google Open Sources Skia Graphics Engine". gigaom. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
^ "The Skia 2D Graphics Library From Google - Phoronix". www.phoronix.com. Retrieved 19 April 2018.

External links[]

YouTube[]

Skia Path Ops : High Performance Set Operations for Geometry on YouTube
Google Developers: Painting in Chromium, 2012 on YouTube

[1] "Skia Graphics Library". skia.org. Retrieved 2020-11-01.

[gigaom-2] Malik, Om (2 Sep 2008). "Google Open Sources Skia Graphics Engine". gigaom. Retrieved 31 August 2011.

[phor-3] "The Skia 2D Graphics Library From Google - Phoronix". www.phoronix.com. Retrieved 19 April 2018.

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