Chapter 6. Line Art—Building Paths

Many of the graphical elements commonly found in graphics libraries, like lines, rectangles, simple polygons, and ellipses all fall into the line art category. With the line art system of Quartz 2D you can create these basic shapes and enjoy all the resolution independence of the library as well as modern graphics features like antialiasing and hardware acceleration. At the heart of the Quartz 2D line art system is a concept called the path. The overview of the Quartz imaging model in Chapter 3, “Introduction to Quartz 2D,” contained the briefest glimpse of what paths are. This chapter takes a much closer look.

Figure 6.1 illustrates a number of path-based shapes and will serve as an excellent platform for an ...

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