[RESOLVED] Drawn Text looks pixelated!

[sean.aulason]

hi there,

the following code draws a text on the picture box, but it looks pixelated and seems bold, no matter what font-face and font-size i use and no matter i use FontStyle.Regular or not...

on the other hand, if i use any other color than black, the text will have a pixelated black outline as well!

System.Drawing.Font ft = new System.Drawing.Font("Verdana", 8.25f);
br = System.Drawing.Brushes.Black;

Bitmap bm = new Bitmap(picturebox1.Width, picturebox1.Height);
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(bm);

g.DrawString("My String", ft, br, 10, 10);

picturebox1.Image = bm;
ft.Dispose();
g.Dispose();

NOTE: since i'm drawing something else on the picture box, i'm using BITMAP to prevent the drawing to be cleared as soon as the control is refreshed...

[BioPhysEngr]

You need to give the Graphics object a hint how to render text:

Graphics g = //From somewhere

//Set this before rendering any text
g.TextRenderingHint = TextRenderingHint.AntiAlias;

g.DrawString(...); //Should look nice now

I think I've used this before with good results. Post again if it doesn't resolve the issue.

See the relevat MSDN link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/a619zh6z.aspx

[sean.aulason]

here is a snapshot of what i said about the text. as you see the text is jagged and seems bold!



EDIT:
thanks a lot BioPhysEngr!

we posted at the same time. it works like a charm.

[BioPhysEngr]

You can also do a form of anti-aliasing by rendering the image 2x or 4x larger than you want that final image to be and then scaling it down. As I recall, the downscaling algorithm in the System.Drawing namespace isn't very advanced (I don't think it does cubic or sync sampling or anything), so only use this option if you are using C# to output an image you will later manipulate in a dedicated image editor (e.g. Photoshop, GIMP, etc).

However, try the TextHint thing first. This option is not preferable.

[sean.aulason]

TextHint does the job for me. thank you again, BioPhysEngr...

[BioPhysEngr]

Glad to help! The 2D graphics libraries are pretty powerful, but sometimes it takes a few tricks to make them work well. :-)