Gradient

Principle

The Gradient module contains the C part of the MicroVG implementation, which manages linear gradients. This module is composed of only one element: an implementation of the Low-Level APIs to create gradient elements compatible with the hardware.

Functional Description

The Gradient module implements the framework of the MicroVG LinearGradient. It provides Low-Level APIs that consist in creating a linear gradient in a platform-specific format. After the gradient creation and encoding, the gradient data should not change when the application draws it: the encoded format should be used by the platform-specific implementation (generally GPU).

A linear gradient is a succession of colors at different positions. The colors from the MicroVG library implementation are encoded in the 32-bit format: ARGB8888. The color encoding in the gradient is a platform-specific implementation.

The buffer where the gradient is encoded is stored in the Java heap. The MicroVG implementation on demand automatically increases the buffer size.

Low-Level API

The low-level APIs that have to be implemented are listed in the header file LLVG_GRADIENT_impl.h (see LLVG_GRADIENT: Vector Linear Gradient):

MicroVG Gradient Low Level

Gradient Low-Level API

  • MicroVG library calls the BSP functions through the header files LLVG_GRADIENT_impl.h, LLVG_PATH_PAINTER_impl.h and LLVG_FONT_PAINTER_impl.h.
  • The C module MicroVG provides a default implementation of LLVG_GRADIENT_impl.h: it manages the gradient buffer creation and filling, then redirect the gradient encoding to microvg_gradient.h.
  • The C module MicroVG-VGLte provides an implementation of LLVG_PATH_PAINTER_impl.h, LLVG_FONT_PAINTER_impl.h and microvg_gradient.h: it encodes the gradient and implements the drawings over the Vivante VGLite library and Freetype.
  • These files are automatically copied in the BSP project when fetching the C modules during the platform build.

Use

The MicroVG Gradient APIs are available in the class ej.microvg. LinearGradient.