13 - Graphics – The Visual (and Audio) Side of Visual Basic

Summary

VB Quip

Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter.

–Eric Raymond

“A picture is worth a thousand words,” or so said Frederick R. Barnard nearly ninety years ago. He was selling advertising for streetcars and couldn't have had computer graphics in mind. In fact, the first computer was still a generation away. But, he was pretty accurate because it just might take a thousand words of computer code to generate a good picture. Remember that the computer takes baby steps and every step has to be clearly described. The same is true with graphics. You can place pictures on your form and you can create graphics – beautiful graphics if you take the time – but you have to write some code to do it. Visual Basic can draw lines and shapes, it can work with text, and it's great with colors. It just takes a little work to create them and a little code to do it right. This chapter introduces the basics for graphics, sound, and multimedia. When it's over, you'll be able to play sound and video, create simple shapes, and draw and paint with the computer.

Graphic Basics

There are several ways to add graphics to a program. You've already worked with the PictureBox to add graphics. But there's so much more.