How can I render curved text into a Bitmap?

Question

I am currently dynamically creating a bitmap and using the graphics object from the bitmap to draw a string on it like so:

System.Drawing.Graphics graph = System.Drawing.Graphics.FromImage(bmp);
graph.DrawString(text, font, brush, new System.Drawing.Point(0, 0));

This returns a rectangular bitmap with the string written straight across from left to right. I would like to also be able to draw the string in the shape of a rainbow. How can I do this?

Answer 1

I think the only way is to render each character individually and use the

Graphics.RotateTransform

to rotate the text. You'll need to work out the rotation angle and rendering offset yourself. You can use the

Graphics.MeasureCharacterRanges

to get the size of each character.

Answer 2

I recently had this problem (I was rendering text for printing onto CDs), so here's my solution:

private void DrawCurvedText(Graphics graphics, string text, Point centre, float distanceFromCentreToBaseOfText, float radiansToTextCentre, Font font, Brush brush)
{
    // Circumference for use later
    var circleCircumference = (float)(Math.PI * 2 * distanceFromCentreToBaseOfText);

    // Get the width of each character
    var characterWidths = GetCharacterWidths(graphics, text, font).ToArray();

    // The overall height of the string
    var characterHeight = graphics.MeasureString(text, font).Height;

    var textLength = characterWidths.Sum();

    // The string length above is the arc length we'll use for rendering the string. Work out the starting angle required to 
    // centre the text across the radiansToTextCentre.
    float fractionOfCircumference = textLength / circleCircumference;

    float currentCharacterRadians = radiansToTextCentre + (float)(Math.PI * fractionOfCircumference);

    for (int characterIndex = 0; characterIndex < text.Length; characterIndex++)
    {
        char @char = text[characterIndex];

        // Polar to cartesian
        float x = (float)(distanceFromCentreToBaseOfText * Math.Sin(currentCharacterRadians));
        float y = -(float)(distanceFromCentreToBaseOfText * Math.Cos(currentCharacterRadians));

        using (GraphicsPath characterPath = new GraphicsPath())
        {
            characterPath.AddString(@char.ToString(), font.FontFamily, (int)font.Style, font.Size, Point.Empty,
                                    StringFormat.GenericTypographic);

            var pathBounds = characterPath.GetBounds();

            // Transformation matrix to move the character to the correct location. 
            // Note that all actions on the Matrix class are prepended, so we apply them in reverse.
            var transform = new Matrix();

            // Translate to the final position
            transform.Translate(centre.X + x, centre.Y + y);

            // Rotate the character
            var rotationAngleDegrees = currentCharacterRadians * 180F / (float)Math.PI - 180F;
            transform.Rotate(rotationAngleDegrees);

            // Translate the character so the centre of its base is over the origin
            transform.Translate(-pathBounds.Width / 2F, -characterHeight);

            characterPath.Transform(transform);

            // Draw the character
            graphics.FillPath(brush, characterPath);
        }

        if (characterIndex != text.Length - 1)
        {
            // Move "currentCharacterRadians" on to the next character
            var distanceToNextChar = (characterWidths[characterIndex] + characterWidths[characterIndex + 1]) / 2F;
            float charFractionOfCircumference = distanceToNextChar / circleCircumference;
            currentCharacterRadians -= charFractionOfCircumference * (float)(2F * Math.PI);
        }
    }
}

private IEnumerable<float> GetCharacterWidths(Graphics graphics, string text, Font font)
{
    // The length of a space. Necessary because a space measured using StringFormat.GenericTypographic has no width.
    // We can't use StringFormat.GenericDefault for the characters themselves, as it adds unwanted spacing.
    var spaceLength = graphics.MeasureString(" ", font, Point.Empty, StringFormat.GenericDefault).Width;

    return text.Select(c => c == ' ' ? spaceLength : graphics.MeasureString(c.ToString(), font, Point.Empty, StringFormat.GenericTypographic).Width);
}

Answer 3

Unfortunatelly in GDI+ there is no way to attach Strings to a path (this is what you would be looking for).

So the only way to do this is doing it "by hand". That means splitting up the string into characters and placing them based on your own path calculations.

Unless you want to put a lot of work into this you should try to find a library (potentially complete GDI+ replacement) to do this or give up on your rainbow.

With WPF you can render text on a path (see link for a howto)