Skia

Skia is an open-source 2D graphics library developed by Google. It provides a comprehensive and cross-platform API for rendering text, geometric shapes, bitmaps, and complex visuals, with support for raster and vector graphics, image filtering, and various paint styles.

The library exposes a set of core abstractions such as SkCanvas for drawing operations, SkPaint for styling, SkPath for vector geometry, and SkImage for bitmap data. It also includes components for text rendering, typeface management, shading, and a suite of image filters and effects. Skia is designed to be backend-agnostic, enabling the same drawing commands to be rendered on different hardware and platforms through a range of backends.

Skia supports GPU-accelerated rendering through multiple backends and can also operate in a CPU-based raster mode. Supported GPU backends typically include OpenGL and Vulkan, with Metal support on Apple platforms and Direct3D on Windows, allowing efficient rendering across desktops, mobile devices, and embedded systems. The library also includes facilities for shaders via its SkSL shading language, enabling custom GPU effects.

Usage and ecosystem: Skia is used by several major Google products, including Chrome, Chrome OS, Android, and Flutter, where it serves as a common rendering engine to produce UI and graphics across platforms. Its open-source nature has made it attractive to other applications and projects seeking a robust, portable 2D graphics solution.

Licensing and development: Skia is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 and is actively maintained by Google and a community of contributors. The project emphasizes portability, performance, and a stable API to support diverse rendering needs.