LogoLogo
  • Welcome to AMP Futures (USA) Help
  • Trading Platforms
    • Quantower
      • Shortcuts
        • Overview
      • Getting Started
        • What's new
        • Installation
        • First start
        • Add Exchanges-Symbols
          • Add New Micro Crude Oil (CME) Symbol - MCLE
        • Platform update
        • Backup & restore manager
        • Reset settings to default
        • You have found a bug. What’s next?
      • General Settings
        • Main Toolbar
        • Workspaces
        • Single Panel
        • Link panels
        • Binds
        • Group of panels
        • Templates
        • Set as Default
        • Symbols lookup
        • Table management
        • Setup Actions & Advanced filters
        • Alerts
        • General settings
      • Data-Feed Connections
        • Connection to CQG (AMP Futures)
          • Errors with CQG
      • Analytics Panels
        • Chart
          • Chart Overview
          • Chart Types
            • Tick chart
            • Time aggregation
            • Renko
            • Heiken Ashi
            • Kagi
            • Points & Figures
            • Range bars
            • Line break
            • Volume Bars
            • Reversal Bars
          • Chart Settings
          • Chart Trading
          • Chart overlays
          • Technical indicators
            • Channels
              • Donchian Channel
              • High Low Indicator
              • Round Numbers
              • Highest High
              • Lowest Low
              • Bollinger Bands
              • Bollinger Bands Flat
              • Price Channel
              • Keltner Channel
              • Moving Average Envelope
            • Moving averages
              • Exponential Moving Average
              • FYL Indicator
              • Linearly Weighted Moving Average
              • McGinley Dynamic Indicator
              • Modified Moving Average Indicator
              • Pivot Point Moving Average Indicator
              • Regression Line Indicator
              • Simple Moving Average Indicator
              • Smoothed Moving Average Indicator
              • Guppy Multiple Moving Average Indicator
              • Trend Breakout System Indicator
              • Triple Exponential Moving Average Indicator
            • Oscillators
              • Aroon Indicator
              • Moving Average Convergence/Divergence
              • Awesome Oscillator
              • Accelerator Oscillator
              • %R Larry Williams
              • Momentum
              • Rate of Change
              • Relative Strength Index (RSI) Indicator
              • Commodity Channel Index
            • Trend
              • Average Directional Movement Index (ADX) Indicator
              • Ichimoku Cloud Indicator
              • Directional Movement Index (DMI) Indicator
              • ZigZag
            • Volatility
              • Average True Range
              • Standard deviation
            • Volume
              • Delta Flow
              • Delta Rotation
              • Level2 indicator
          • Drawing Tools
          • Volume Analysis Tools | Volume Profiles | Footprint chart | VWAP
            • Cluster chart
            • Volume profiles
            • Time statistics
            • Time histogram
            • Historical Time & Sales
          • OHLC
          • Power Trades
          • VWAP | Volume Weighted Average Price
          • Anchored VWAP
        • Watchlist
        • Time & Sales
        • Price Statistic
        • DOM Surface
        • Option Analytics
        • TPO Profile Chart
      • Trading Panels
        • Multiple Order Entry
        • Order Entry
          • Algo Order Types
          • OCO (Multi-Level)
          • OCO (Post Fill)
          • Order Types
        • DOM Trader
          • How to setup DOM for Scalping
        • Market depth
        • Trading simulator
        • Market Replay
      • Portfolio Panels
        • Positions
        • Working Orders
        • Trades
        • Orders History
        • Synthetic Symbols
        • Historical Symbols
      • Information Panels
        • Account info
        • Symbol Info
        • Event Log
        • RSS
        • Reports
      • Miscellaneous
        • Symbol Mapping Manager
        • Live Support
        • Market Heat map
        • Stat matrix
        • Exchange times
        • Quote Board
        • Browser
        • Excel and RTD function
          • Changing RTD Throttle Interval in Excel
        • Quantower Telegram Bot
      • Quantower Algo
        • Introduction
        • Install for Visual Studio
        • Strategy runner
        • Simple Indicator
        • Simple strategy
        • Input Parameters
        • Built-In indicators access
        • Custom indicators access
        • Level2 data
        • Access Volume analysis data from indicators
        • Indicator with custom painting (GDI)
        • Access Chart from indicator
        • Using markers with indicators
        • Using Clouds in Indicator
        • Adding a custom indicator to Watchlist
        • Downloading history
        • Access to trading portfolio
        • Trading operations
        • Example: Simple Moving Average
        • Access to advanced aggregations
        • Access to symbol/account additional fields
      • Customization
        • Localization
      • FAQ
        • General Errors
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  • Introduction
  • Access Graphics object
  • Drawing a simple text
  • Market depth levels on chart

Was this helpful?

  1. Trading Platforms
  2. Quantower
  3. Quantower Algo

Indicator with custom painting (GDI)

Draw any graphical objects on the chart using the GDI+ library

PreviousAccess Volume analysis data from indicatorsNextAccess Chart from indicator

Last updated 4 years ago

Was this helpful?

Introduction

In this topic, we will show you how to use a really great possibility of scripts in Quantower — a custom painting on the Chart. You can draw anything you need via GDI+ — a graphical subsystem of Windows. In C# all features from GDI+ are encapsulated in class Graphics. It is a set of functions allowing to create graphical primitives and splines using brushes and pens, Images, etc. More information you can find on the .

Access Graphics object

Let's start. To get access to Graphics object of the chart you need to override OnPaint method and use Hdc value from its parameters:

public override void OnPaintChart(PaintChartEventArgs args){    Graphics gr = Graphics.FromHdc(args.Hdc);                        }

That's all - now you have full access to chart's canvas and can draw anything you want. For drawing in C# you need to call special methods with graphical parameters: coordinates, color, width, etc.:

public override void OnPaintChart(PaintChartEventArgs args){    Graphics gr = Graphics.FromHdc(args.Hdc);    gr.DrawLine(Pens.Red, 100,100,200,200);​    gr.DrawRectangle(Pens.Blue, 250, 100, 100, 100);​    gr.FillRectangle(Brushes.Yellow, 400, 100, 100, 100);            ​    Pen myPen = new Pen(Color.Green, 3);    gr.DrawRectangle(myPen, 50, 50, 500, 200);}

If we build this indicator - we can see the result on the chart window:

Drawing directly on the chart

Drawing a simple text

Let's try to draw a text — it is very similar. We need to specify text, font, and coordinates:

public override void OnPaintChart(PaintChartEventArgs args){    Graphics gr = Graphics.FromHdc(args.Hdc);​    gr.DrawString("An examle if drawing text...", new Font("Arial", 20), Brushes.Red, 100, 100);    }

Build this and check your chart:

Market depth levels on chart

Ok, it is interesting but quite useless. Let's do something more serious — for example, display all levels of market depth on the chart. This is source code:

protected override void OnInit(){    this.Symbol.Subscribe(SubscribeQuoteType.Level2);}public override void OnPaintChart(PaintChartEventArgs args){    Graphics gr = Graphics.FromHdc(args.Hdc);​    Font font = new Font("Arial", 10);​    var level2Collections =  this.Symbol.DepthOfMarket.GetDepthOfMarketAggregatedCollections();    for (int i = 0; i < level2Collections.Bids.Length; i++)        gr.DrawString(level2Collections.Bids[i].Price.ToString(), font, Brushes.LightGray, 20, 23 * i + 30);    for (int i = 0; i < level2Collections.Asks.Length; i++)        gr.DrawString(level2Collections.Asks[i].Price.ToString(), font, Brushes.LightGray, 100, 23 * i + 30);}

And this is how our chart looks now. You can compare results with Market Depth panel in Quantower:

It is a great possibility of chart features extending, isn't it? You can add your own Info Window, Track Cursor or even Volume Analysis visualization. There are no limitations in our API, only your fantasy.

Drawing a text
Display bids and asks on the chart
Microsoft documentation site