Wolfram: Graphics Primitive

Graphics Primitive

• Graphics Primitive is a expression that represents a graphical element, such as line, circle, polygon, text, sphere, tube.
• You use graphics primitive to create graphics, programatically.
• All Plot functions or visualization functions that show graphics, are internally creating a list of graphics primitives, and return it as output.

• Some graphics primitives are 2D (e.g. Circle, Disk, Rectangle)
• Some are 3D (e.g. Sphere, Cuboid, Tube)
• Some both (e.g. Point, Line, Polygon), depending on their coordinates are 2D or 3D points.

2D Graphics Primitives

• Point[{45,41}]
• Line[{{331,754}, {557,550}, {888,272}}]
• Polygon[args]
• Text[args]
• Disk[args]
• Circle[args]
• Rectangle[args]
• and more

Complete list at

• Graphics

3D Graphics Primitives

• Point[{44,90,48}]
• Line[{{92,402,927}, {183,643,101}, {229,39,925}}]
• Polygon[args]
• Sphere[args]
• Cuboid[args]
• Tube[args]
• and more

Complete list at

• Graphics3D

Graphics primitives are symbolic. By themselves they do nothing.

Line[{{0, 0}, {2, 1}}]

Graphics primitive usually are bundled together in a list. e.g.

{Line[arg], Line[arg], Polygon[arg], etc}

Adding Color, Thickness, Etc

• Wolfram: Graphics Directive

Displaying Graphics Primitives as Graphics

• Wolfram: Graphics, Graphics3D