Delphi: draw anti-aliased triangle

Question

How can I draw anti-aliased triangle on ListBoxDrawItem?

ListBox.Canvas.Polygon

draws with jags.

Thanks!!!

Answer 1

The simplest approach to achieve anti-aliased drawing with GDI is to draw to a larger surface, then scale back to original dimensions having halftone enabled stretching mode.

Below code example uses a 16 times larger bitmap then the list box's client area (this is a considerably larger bitmap and it will take a good time to do the drawings, but the effect should be seen easier).

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
const
  ZOOM = 16;
var
  Bmp: TBitmap;
  StretchMode: Integer;
begin
  // for comparison
  ListBox2.Canvas.Polygon([Point(20, 10), Point(10, 50), Point(80, 30)]);


  Bmp := TBitmap.Create;
  // create a large bitmap and set coordinate extents accordingly
  Bmp.SetSize(ListBox1.ClientWidth * ZOOM, ListBox1.ClientHeight * ZOOM);
  SetMapMode(Bmp.Canvas.Handle, MM_ISOTROPIC);
  SetWindowExtEx(Bmp.Canvas.Handle, 100, 100, nil);
  SetViewportExtEx(Bmp.Canvas.Handle, 100 * ZOOM, 100 * ZOOM, nil);
  // without halftone we won't gain anything
  SetStretchBltMode(Bmp.Canvas.Handle, HALFTONE);
  // transfer what's on the list box to bitmap canvas
  BitBlt(Bmp.Canvas.Handle, 0, 0, Bmp.Width, Bmp.Height,
          ListBox1.Canvas.Handle, 0, 0, SRCCOPY);

  Bmp.Canvas.Polygon([Point(20, 10), Point(10, 50), Point(80, 30)]);

  // transfer bitmap contents
  StretchMode := SetStretchBltMode(ListBox1.Canvas.Handle, HALFTONE);
  StretchBlt(ListBox1.Canvas.Handle, 0, 0,
      ListBox1.ClientWidth * ZOOM, ListBox1.ClientHeight * ZOOM,
      Bmp.Canvas.Handle, 0, 0, Bmp.Width, Bmp.Height, SRCCOPY);
  SetStretchBltMode(ListBox1.Canvas.Handle, StretchMode);

  Bmp.Free;
end;

In the below picture, in the left is the ListBox1 - the one drawn with anti-aliasing. Please notice that the text also have gained some of the effect:

I would of course advise you to take one of David's suggestions into account. This code was rather experimental :).