pix - 2D graphics library

Tcl/Tk wrapper around Pixie, a full-featured 2D graphics library written in 👑 Nim.

Compatibility :

• Tcl/Tk 8.6 or higher

Platforms :

• MacOS (x64 / arm64)
• Windows x64
• Linux x64

Source distributions and binary packages can be downloaded here for the platforms mentioned above.

Note

I have mainly tested this package on Windows and MacOs x64 with version 8.6.16 and 9.0.1 of Tcl/Tk, it should work on Linux and MacOS arm (I hope so !)

Build :

If you want to build pix from source, please refer to BUILDING.md for detailed compilation instructions.

Example :

package require pix

# Init 'context' with size + color.
set ctx [pix::ctx::new {200 200} "white"]

# Style first rectangle.
pix::ctx::fillStyle $ctx "rgb(0, 0, 255)" ; # blue color
pix::ctx::fillRect $ctx {10 10} {100 100}

# Style second rectangle.
pix::ctx::fillStyle $ctx "rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.5)" ; # red color with alpha 50%
pix::ctx::fillRect $ctx {50 50} {100 100}

# Save context in a image file (*.png|*.bmp|*.qoi|*.ppm)
pix::ctx::writeFile $ctx rectangle.png

# Or display in label by example :
set p [image create photo]
pix::drawSurface $ctx $p
label .l -image $p
pack .l

See examples folder for more demos.

Documentation :

A large part of the pix documentation comes from the Pixie API and source files.

Currently API tested and supported are :

API	Description
context	This namespace provides a 2D API commonly used on the web.
font	This namespace allows you to write text, load fonts.
image	Crop, resize, blur image and much more.
paint	This namespace plays with colors.
path	Vector Paths.
svg	Parse, render SVG (namespace pretty limited)

Note

Since version 0.8, if available resvg is used to render SVG files in the pix::svg namespace.

Acknowledgments :

• tclstubs-nimble (MIT)
• Pixie (MIT)

License :

pix is covered under the terms of the MIT license.

Changes :

• 03-Jun-2024 : 0.1
  • Initial release.
• 25-Jun-2024 : 0.2
  • Add font namespace + test file.
  • Add image namespace + test file.
  • Add paint namespace + test file.
  • Add path namespace + test file.
  • Rename pix::ctx::getSize by pix::ctx::get
  • Rename pix::img::read by pix::img::readImage
  • Rename pix::font::read by pix::font::readFont
  • Add documentation based on Pixie API reference.
  • Add binary for Linux.
  • Code refactoring.
• 06-Oct-2024 : 0.3
  • Doc : Jpeg format is not supported for pix::ctx::writeFile.
  • Rename pix::parsePath to pix::pathObjToString
  • Add pix::svgStyleToPathObj proc (convert SVG path string to path object)
  • Add pix::rotMatrix proc (matrix rotation)
  • Fix bug pix::path::fillOverlaps bad arguments, used.
  • Code refactoring.
• 02-Mar-2025 : 0.4
  • Support for Tcl/Tk9.
  • Adds binary for MacOS arm64.
  • Adds X11 for purpose testing.
  • Code refactoring ++.
• 03-Apr-2025 : 0.5
  • Try to improve the comments for the documentation.
  • Fixes bug for pix::ctx::clip + pix::ctx::isPointInPath
    procedures when args count was equal to 2.
  • Adds pix::toBinary procedure.
  • Adds pix::getKeys procedure for image & context, useful for debugging.
  • Adds procedures for working with matrices (translate, scale, multiply).
  • Adds useMalloc flag for nim c command.
  • Adds another test for fonts (works only with Tcl9)
  • Reworks tests files (Compare the result with pix::img::diff proc).
  • Simplification of some procedures + cosmetic changes.
• 07-Sep-2025 : 0.6
  • Fix doc : Matrix values are in column order.
  • Adds HSL color.
  • Redefining Tcl/Tk procedures for transition to Nim version 2.2.4.
  • Fixes setLineDash command to get around pixie's problem when Tcl list is not even.
  • Try to improve the X11 binding.
  • Cosmetic changes.
• 13-Oct-2025 : 0.7
  • Adds new procedures for playing with colours (mix, darken,...).
  • Improved compilation support.
  • Bump pixie to version 5.1.0.
  • Refactoring matrix3x3 procedure.
  • Fix doc: Matrix values are in row order (I think it's good now!).
• 17-Nov-2025 : 0.8
  • Adds hsl color + spin command.
  • Adds matrix inverse procedure.
  • Adds toGrayScale procedure.
  • Update ruff version to 2.7.0.
  • resvg rust library [C-API] for SVG rendering, is now a
    part of this project (optional). From now on there will be two releases
    distributions, one with resvg binding and one without.
  • Previous versions (v0.1-v0.7) included Ruff! documentation
    assets without proper license attribution. This has been corrected in v0.8+.