MAmakapuf·Oct 10, 2022Submission
A tiny, single-header -like 2D rasterizer for C++
3 points · Open discussiona-e-k
canvas_ity
C++2022–2026
a-e-k / canvas_ity
canvas_ity
A tiny, single-header <canvas>-like 2D rasterizer for C++
4Distinct people
11Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
627GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
A tiny, single-header <canvas>-like 2D rasterizer for C++
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
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Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 2:59:58 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year11 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2022-10-10 06:51:33 UTC to 2026-02-22 01:59:26 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
What Hacker News says
2 sourcesShow HN: canvas_ity - A tiny, single-header canvas-like 2D rasterizer for C++
Hi HN! After a few years of off-and-on work on it, I'm pleased to release my canvas_ity library as open source.
TLDR: This is a single-header C++ library with no dependencies beyond the standard C++ library. In about 2300 lines of 78-column code (not counting blanks or comments), or 1300 semicolons, it implements an API based on the basic W3C <canvas> specification to draw 2D vector graphics into an image buffer:
- Strokes and fills (with antialiasing and gamma-correct blending)
- Linear and radial gradients
- Patterns (with repeat modes and bi-cubic resampling)
- Line caps and line joins (handling high curvature)
- Dash patterns and dash offsets
- Transforms
- Lines, quadratic and cubic Beziers, arcs, and rectangles
- Text (very basic, but does its own TTF font file parsing)
- Raster images (i.e., sprites)
- Clipping (via masking)
- Co
Read the rest
mpositing modes (Porter-Duff)
- Drop shadows with Gaussian blurs
Why? Some years ago I needed to programmatically draw on an image file. I looked at Skia and was put off by its size and build complexity. Cairo was much better, but by then I was spoiled by the STB single-header libraries. I like tiny code and writing a single-header but powerful vector graphics library seemed like a fun challenge and a good way to pay things forward. I ended up with something that can compile down to less than 36 KiB of object code on x86-64 and uncovered a lot of interesting browser <canvas> quirks along the way with my testing suite. Enjoy!