Use the DevExpress Drawing Library

• Apr 26, 2023
• 2 minutes to read

This topic describes how to replace the libdgiplus-based drawing engine with the DevExpress.Drawing Graphics Library in your ASP.NET Core application.

The DevExpress Drawing Library allows you to use the new Skia-based drawing engine. This library ships with the DevExpress primitives, which serve as counterparts for the System.Drawing primitives (Font, Pen, Brush, and so on). If you use the the System.Drawing.Common package v7 and later, the Skia-based engine is enabled automatically.

Configuration

To enable the SkiaSharp-based engine, add the following packages to your application:

• DevExpress.Drawing
• DevExpress.Drawing.Skia (if your application uses the System.Drawing.Common package version 7 and higher)
• Microsoft.ICU.ICU4C.Runtime

If the engine is not enabled automatically and the NotSupportedException is thrown, call the DevExpress.Drawing.Internal.DXDrawingEngine.ForceSkia() method to force the Skia-based rendering. Please note that this API is marked as internal and we may change it in the future.

Refer to the following article for more information on library troubleshooting: Drawing Library Troubleshooting.

Configure the Environment

The following commands configure the environment in the dockerfile:

View Example: Reporting for ASP.NET Core - How to Use the SkiaSharp-Based DevExpress Drawing Engine

Debian

RUN apt-get update
RUN apt-get install -y libc6 libicu-dev libfontconfig1

Alpine

RUN apk update && apk upgrade
RUN apk add icu-libs icu-data-full fontconfig

Ubuntu

RUN apt-get update
RUN apt-get install -y libc6 libicu-dev libfontconfig1

Refer to the following article for information on how to use the DevExpress Drawing library on Linux or macOS: Use Reporting on Linux and macOS.