Any experience with a good drawing component / library

Question

I am looking for a component / library that I can use in an ASP.NET application that will allow users to drag and drop shapes into the drawing area, link them using strings, add text fields, etc. you can do in packages like Visio, Samrt Draw, etc.

Additional requirements: 1. Ability to save the final drawing 2. Export the drawing to general formats, such as jpeg

A nice feature will be the ability to define new shapes / elements that can be dropped into drawings, for example. They say that the user often visited the plans of the living room, they may want to create figures representing tables, sofas, boilers, etc. that they can use in the drawings.

Answer 1

From what I understand, this application will run in a client browser, so I recommend that you use Silverlight or flash

Answer 2

You obviously need a web client (such as ActiveX / Flash / Java) to enable things like drawing objects and dragging them. Of course, DHTML / JavaScript is another option, but I would not go this way.

You might think of Silverlight / Flash, but if you are not familiar with these platforms, you may consider processing, a lightweight and simple language that displays Java applets. I believe that you can integrate processing applets with your Asp.NET application, like the other alternatives mentioned in other offers.

Please check if it works for you. http://processing.org/learning/

Answer 3

I would recommend using Flash or Silverlight so that users can play with shapes and draw in the browser.

Once they have the finished material, use tools like imagemagick from ASP.net to either save it to the database in blob or export it to PDF / Jpeg, etc.

Answer 4

Although I am not specifically targeted at ASP.NET, I have had success with Draw2D . This is a pure JavaScript implementation and runs on a cross-browser basis. I like it because it does not require Silverlight or Flash and has the features that you are looking for, although I save drawings inside the application and do not worry about printing them.

You might be lucky with Silverlight if you are going to ASP.NET, but I thought I would give you an alternative.

Answer 5

How to use GDI +? (System.Drawing namespace)