HotCocoa::Graphics (HCG) is an easy-to-use graphics library that harnesses the powerful drawing capabilities of Mac OS X using the Ruby programming language.   With a few lines of easy-to-read code, you can write commands to draw simple or complex shapes, lines, and patterns, process and filter images, create abstract art or visualize scientific data, and much more. Images can be saved as JPG, GIF, TIF, as PDF for high-resolution printing, or drawn directly into a live application window.

Inspiration for this project was derived from Processing (Java) and NodeBox (Python).  HCG offers similar functionality using the elegant Ruby programming language and the power of native graphics processing on Mac hardware.  HCG also provides an emphasis on organic, random variation and iterative design.

HotCocoa::Graphics is a subset of the MacRuby project, which itself is a branch of Ruby created by Apple whose goal is to provide easy access to the power of Cocoa, the language of Mac OS X applications. HCG provides a simple object-oriented interface into the power of Mac OS X’s Core Graphics and Core Image drawing libraries.  MacRuby is still under development, but the latest version can already be downloaded and used to create graphics and art.

HCG was originally written by James Reynolds as a RubyCocoa library and was later merged into the MacRuby project.