Lably
Skip to content

Cairo (graphics)

Vector graphics-based software library

  • 6 min read
  • 3 chapters

Related on Lably

Through Open-source software

Cairo is used by GTK (versions 2.8 through 4.x), the Gecko layout engine in Mozilla Firefox, WebKit, Poppler, and Inkscape, among other projects. The library is dual-licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1 and the Mozilla Public License 1.1.

The name derives from the project's original name "Xr," interpreted as the Greek letters chi and rho, which together sound like "Cairo", not to be confused with the religious Chi Rho.

History

Keith Packard and Carl Worth created the project for use in the X Window System, originally naming it Xr (later Xr/Xc). The name was changed in July 2003 to emphasize that the library was cross-platform and not tied to X11.

Cairo 1.0 was released in 2005, providing a stable API. Version 1.2 (2006) added PDF and SVG backend support. Version 1.4 (2007) improved font handling and added the cairo_push_group API for offscreen rendering. Version 1.10 (2010) introduced the recording surface, which captures drawing operations for later replay, and the cairo_region API.

In 2022, several legacy backends were removed, including BeOS, OS/2, DirectFB, and the OpenGL backend (which had been inactive for a decade).

GTK adopted Cairo for rendering in version 2.8 (2005), and GTK 3.0 (2011) used Cairo for all rendering. GTK 4 (2020) shifted to Vulkan and OpenGL renderers via GSK, reducing Cairo's role.

Sign in to keep reading

2 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in Computing and communication

ISBNUnique numeric book identifier since 1970X (social network)American social networking serviceWayback MachineDigital archive by the Internet ArchivePython (programming language)General-purpose programming languageMacOSOperating system for Apple computersUnicodeCharacter encoding standard