How to draw transparent with alpha transparency in Delphi?

Question

I want to draw quite complex images with alpha-transparent rectangles and alpha-transparent images. There is GDI+ wrapper from Mitov, but it doesn't seem to support 32bit BMP files plus it rescales them and the documentation is terrible. BMPs are way faster than PNGs so I want to use them. There is SynGDI wrapper of GDI+, but it seems very basic and there is no documentation for it. There is also this trick for GDI:

procedure DrawAlphaAPI(Source: TBitmap; Destination: TCanvas;
  const X, Y: Integer; const Opacity: Byte = 255);
var  BlendFunc: TBlendFunction;
begin
  BlendFunc.BlendOp := AC_SRC_OVER;
  BlendFunc.BlendFlags := 0;
  BlendFunc.SourceConstantAlpha := Opacity;

  if Source.PixelFormat = pf32bit then
    BlendFunc.AlphaFormat := AC_SRC_ALPHA
  else
    BlendFunc.AlphaFormat := 0;

  Windows.AlphaBlend(Destination.Handle, X, Y, Source.Width, Source.Height,
  Source.Canvas.Handle, 0, 0, Source.Width, Source.Height, BlendFunc);
end;

But when I call it with Opacity = 255 it draws 32bit bitmaps not properly (something like they are half transparent where they should be fully). I don't want to use Scanline to make pixels transparent as this will be too complicated to draw all the transparent rectangles this way. Also I thin GDI+ should be faster on modern computers, am I right?

So the question is: how to draw an alpha transparent rectangle and bitmap easily (without tons of code)?

Preferred Delphi: 7. I also have 2005 and XE3 but since 7 is a speed demon I would most want something to work from 7 up.

Answer 1

If you prepare the ordinary TBitmap, any of the GDI+ implementations can be used just assigning bmp.Canvas.Handle. Your problem in compiling might be caused by an old DirctDraw-Version in the Folder, just remove it.

implementation

uses GDIPAPI, GDIPOBJ;
{$R *.dfm}

Procedure PrepareBMP(bmp: TBitmap; Width, Height: Integer);
var
  p: Pointer;
begin
  bmp.PixelFormat := pf32Bit;
  bmp.Width := Width;
  bmp.Height := Height;
  bmp.HandleType := bmDIB;
  bmp.ignorepalette := true;
  bmp.alphaformat := afPremultiplied;
  // clear all Scanlines
  p := bmp.ScanLine[Height - 1];
  ZeroMemory(p, Width * Height * 4);
end;

procedure TForm2.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
  bmp: TBitmap;
  G: TGPGRaphics;
  B: TGPSolidBrush;
begin
  bmp := TBitmap.Create;
  try
    PrepareBMP(bmp, 300, 300);
    G := TGPGRaphics.Create(bmp.Canvas.Handle);
    B := TGPSolidBrush.Create(MakeColor(100, 255, 0, 0));
    try
      G.SetSmoothingMode(SmoothingModeHighQuality);
      G.FillEllipse(B, MakeRect(0.0, 0, 300, 300));
      B.SetColor(MakeColor(100, 0, 255, 128));
      G.FillEllipse(B, MakeRect(40.0, 40, 260, 260));
    finally
      B.Free;
      G.Free;
    end;
    // draw overlapping in Form Canvas to display transparency
    Canvas.Draw(0, 0, bmp);
    Canvas.Draw(100, 100, bmp);
  finally
    bmp.Free;
  end;
end;