MCP Canvas

A universal definition-based canvas engine for 2D/3D rendering with CDL (Canvas Definition Language) support. Any type of diagram, drawing, or visualization can be rendered on this engine — node-edge graphs, circuit diagrams, PCB layouts, 3D models, block layouts, page documents, relationship diagrams, tree structures — all on the same engine.

Features

Definition-Based Rendering - No images stored; definitions are stored and rendered per view
CDL (Canvas Definition Language) - DSL for describing visual definitions; LLM-generated, reproducible
Universal Canvas - Not bound to any specific use case; renders anything based on registered types
Extensible Type System - Unknown types can be rendered with registered definitions and renderers
Performance Guaranteed - Real-time interaction maintained with tens of thousands of elements
9 Built-in Layout Algorithms:
- manual, auto-grid, auto-flow (Sugiyama), force-directed (Barnes-Hut)
- constraint, circular, compact, stack, free-form
Core Primitives: 13 shape types (rect, circle, ellipse, line, polyline, polygon, arc, path, text, richText, image, group, foreignContent)
3D Support: Box, sphere, cylinder, cone, torus, extrude, revolve, mesh geometries with PBR materials
Cross-platform support: Android, iOS, web, Linux, Windows, macOS

Quick Start

import 'package:mcp_canvas/mcp_canvas.dart';

void main() {
  // Create a canvas
  final canvas = Canvas();

  // Register a custom node type
  canvas.registry.registerNodeType(NodeTypeDefinition(
    type: 'resistor',
    displayName: 'Resistor',
    defaultDefinition: VisualDefinition(
      id: 'resistor-def',
      type: 'resistor',
    ),
  ));

  // Create nodes
  final node1 = canvas.createNode(
    'resistor',
    const Position(100, 100),
    properties: {'resistance': '10k'},
  );

  final node2 = canvas.createNode(
    'resistor',
    const Position(300, 100),
    properties: {'resistance': '22k'},
  );

  // Create an edge between nodes
  final edge = canvas.createEdge(
    EdgeEndpoint(nodeId: node1.id, portId: 'out'),
    EdgeEndpoint(nodeId: node2.id, portId: 'in'),
  );

  // Serialize to JSON
  final json = canvas.toJson();

  // Search for elements
  final results = canvas.search('10k');
}

Core Concepts

Visual Definition

Every visual element exists as a definition — a complete description of what primitives it consists of, how it looks under different conditions, and how it responds to state changes.

final definition = VisualDefinition(
  id: 'my-type',
  type: 'my-type',
  shape2d: Shape2D(
    primitives: [
      RectPrimitive(
        CommonAttributes(id: 'body', fill: SolidFill(CanvasColor(200, 200, 255))),
        width: 120, height: 60, cornerRadius: 8,
      ),
      TextPrimitive(
        CommonAttributes(id: 'label'),
        x: 60, y: 30, content: r'${name}',
      ),
    ],
  ),
);

Type Registry

The type registry provides 9 extension points for host applications:

| Extension Point | Description | |----------------|-------------| | NodeTypeDefinition | Custom node types with default visuals, ports, properties | | EdgeTypeDefinition | Custom edge types with routing, style, connection rules | | PortTypeDefinition | Custom port types with compatibility rules | | CanvasLayoutStrategy | Custom layout algorithms | | CanvasInteractionMode | Custom interaction modes | | CanvasRenderer | Custom renderer backends | | CustomRenderer | Foreign content area rendering | | ConnectionValidator | Custom port connection logic | | ExportFormat | Custom export formats |

Layout Engine

9 built-in layout algorithms with constraint support:

final engine = LayoutEngine();

// Auto-flow layout (Sugiyama layered graph)
final result = engine.layout('auto-flow', canvas.nodes, canvas.edges);

// Force-directed layout
final result = engine.layout('force-directed', canvas.nodes, canvas.edges);

// Apply constraints
engine.layout('constraint', canvas.nodes, canvas.edges,
  constraints: [
    Constraint(type: ConstraintType.align, targets: ['n1', 'n2'],
      params: {'axis': 'horizontal'}),
  ],
);

CDL (Canvas Definition Language)

LLM-efficient DSL for visual definitions with round-trip guarantee:

// Parse CDL
final parser = CdlParser();
final ast = parser.parse('''
  type resistor {
    shape2d {
      rect body { width: 120; height: 60; cornerRadius: 8; }
      text label { x: 60; y: 30; content: "\${resistance}"; }
    }
    ports {
      in: left, direction: input;
      out: right, direction: output;
    }
  }

  canvas {
    node r1: resistor { x: 100; y: 100; resistance: "10k"; }
    node r2: resistor { x: 300; y: 100; resistance: "22k"; }
    edge r1.out -> r2.in
  }
''');

// Serialize to CDL
final serializer = CdlSerializer();
final cdlText = serializer.serialize(canvas.nodes, canvas.edges, canvas.groups);

Event System

Full event bus with wildcard matching and undo/redo:

// Listen for all node events
canvas.on('node.*', (event) {
  // Handles node.create, node.delete, node.move, etc.
});

// Undo/redo support
canvas.undo();
canvas.redo();

Collaboration Display

Remote collaboration visuals (sync logic is host app responsibility):

// Show remote cursor
canvas.setCursor('user-1', Position(200, 300), name: 'Alice');

// Show remote selection
canvas.setPresence('user-1', ['node-1', 'node-2']);

// Lock element for editing
canvas.collaboration.setEditLock('node-1', userId: 'user-1');

Large-Scale Support

Automatic performance optimization based on element count:

// Spatial indexing for fast queries
final index = RTreeIndex();
index.insert('node-1', Rect(100, 100, 120, 60));
final nearbyElements = index.query(Rect(0, 0, 500, 500));

// Virtualization for 10,000+ elements
final virtualization = Virtualization(bufferRatio: 1.5);
final result = virtualization.compute(viewport, allNodes, index);
// result.fullElements — render in detail
// result.metadataOnly — render simplified

// Automatic strategy selection
final selector = PerformanceStrategySelector();
final strategy = selector.select(elementCount);
// < 100: immediate, 100-1000: culling+LOD, 1000-10000: cache, 10000+: virtualization

Architecture

lib/
├── src/
│   ├── core/           # Foundation types
│   │   ├── common/     # Position, Size, Rect, Color, Transform, Matrix3, Vector3
│   │   ├── graph_model/ # CanvasNode, CanvasPort, CanvasEdge, CanvasGroup
│   │   ├── visual_definition/ # VisualDefinition, Primitives, Styles, Filters
│   │   ├── type_registry/     # TypeRegistry, Schema, Type definitions
│   │   └── surface/    # CanvasSurface, Grid, Snap, Rulers, Pages
│   ├── feature/        # Feature modules
│   │   ├── layout/     # LayoutEngine + 9 algorithms + edge routing
│   │   ├── view/       # SemanticZoom, Layers, Viewports, Camera
│   │   ├── interaction/ # SelectionManager, Shortcuts, Gestures
│   │   ├── event/      # EventBus, HistoryManager, Subscriptions
│   │   ├── animation/  # AnimationSystem, Easing functions
│   │   ├── cdl/        # CDL Lexer, Parser, Serializer, AST
│   │   ├── collaboration/ # Remote cursors, presence, edit locks
│   │   ├── search/     # Full-text search with scoring
│   │   └── large_scale/ # Virtualization, SpatialIndex, Minimap
│   ├── rendering/      # Render pipeline
│   │   ├── pipeline/   # 10-stage RenderPipeline, RenderScene
│   │   ├── renderer/   # Abstract CanvasRenderer, CustomRenderer
│   │   └── cache/      # 3-layer CacheManager (layout, raster, geometry)
│   └── api/            # Public API
│       ├── canvas.dart # Canvas facade (single entry point)
│       ├── error/      # 30+ typed error classes
│       └── serialization/ # JSON, CDL, Export/Import
└── mcp_canvas.dart     # Public barrel file

Issues and Feedback

Please file any issues, bugs, or feature requests in our issue tracker.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

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