https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.media.drawingcontext(v=vs.110).aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.medi... You

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.media.drawingcontext(v=vs.110).aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.medi... You can build whatever you want on top of the WPF foundation. That's how .net framework API's work. WPF is a rendering engine, with a control management system build on top of it. XAML is an HTML like way of defining controls, but you don't have to use it. XAML is sugar, and I generally avoid it unless my application is super simple. You don't have to use their control management system either, you can go strait for the retained mode graphics system. As much as Microsoft tries to make windows development look like web development through sugar on top (XAML is the most recent) to attract the new generation of web only developers, it's not. There's a lot of depth, performance, and control to be had there. If you want to see what I'm talking about, get visual studio community edition (if you don't have visual studio already) and spend a weekend with WPF without XAML. I think you'll be surprised with how much fun you can have, and the level of control you can take. Make your own controls, override measure, arrange, and render.