Skia Graphics Engine

Original author(s)	Skia Inc.
Developer(s)	Google
Repository	skia.googlesource.com/skia
Written in	C++
Operating system	Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows
Type	Graphics library
License	New BSD License
Website	skia.org skia.googlesource.com/skia

The Skia Graphics Engine or Skia is an open-source 2D graphics library written in C++. Skia abstracts away platform-specific graphics API (which differ from one to another).^[1] Skia Inc. originally developed the library; Google acquired it in 2005,^[2] and then released the software as open source licensed under the New BSD free software license in 2008.

Overview

In order to stay multi-platform, Skia supports several (platform-dependent) back-ends. These include:

• CPU software rasterization
• Portable Document Format (PDF) output
• GPU-accelerated rendering by using:^[3]
  • ANGLE backed, which translates OpenGL ES calls into vendor's native APIs
  • Vulkan, and Metal.

• Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
• XPS

Skia is most similar in purpose to Cairo or Pathfinder (meaning that it focuses on drawing) rather than to other more elaborate APIs like that one of Qt that provide their own widgets and UI description language etc.^[4]

Application

The library is used as of 2021^[update] in Google Chrome, ChromeOS, ChromiumOS, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, Android, Firefox OS, Flutter,^[5] Avalonia (from Alpha 4) and LibreOffice (from version 7.0).

The Skia library is also present on the BlackBerry PlayBook, though the extent of its usage is unclear.

Supported platforms

• Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10
• macOS 10.10.5 or later
• iOS 8 or later
• Android 4.1 (JellyBean) or later
• Ubuntu 14.04+, Debian 8+, openSUSE 13.3+, or Fedora Linux 24+
• Web Browsers^[6]

History

Skia Inc, developers of the Skia Graphics Engine, was founded in 2004 by Mike Reed and Cary Clark in Chapel Hill North Carolina, before being acquired by Google in 2005.^[7]