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Render with SkiaSharp in .NET MAUI

The SkiaSharp.Views.Maui.Controls package provides two cross-platform controls:

Control Surface Paint event
SKCanvasView CPU raster PaintSurface with SKPaintSurfaceEventArgs
SKGLView Ganesh GPU PaintSurface with SKPaintGLSurfaceEventArgs

Start with SKCanvasView. Choose SKGLView only after checking the backend and support level on every target your app ships.

Register the handlers

Call UseSkiaSharp() when creating the MAUI app. Without this call, MAUI does not register the handlers for the controls:

using SkiaSharp.Views.Maui.Controls.Hosting;

public static MauiApp CreateMauiApp() =>
    MauiApp
        .CreateBuilder()
        .UseMauiApp<App>()
        .UseSkiaSharp()
        .Build();

Add a view

Declare the controls from the SkiaSharp.Views.Maui.Controls namespace:

<ContentPage
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/dotnet/2021/maui"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
    xmlns:skia="clr-namespace:SkiaSharp.Views.Maui.Controls;assembly=SkiaSharp.Views.Maui.Controls">
    <skia:SKCanvasView PaintSurface="OnPaintSurface" />
</ContentPage>

The handler receives SkiaSharp.Views.Maui.SKPaintSurfaceEventArgs. Draw on e.Surface.Canvas, then let the control present the result.

Use InvalidateSurface() when application state changes and the control needs another frame. For SKGLView, set HasRenderLoop only while continuous rendering is required; otherwise invalidate on demand.

Check the platform backend

The public MAUI controls remain the same, but their handlers use different native views:

Target SKCanvasView handler SKGLView handler
Android Native raster SKCanvasView SKGLTextureView with OpenGL ES
iOS Native raster SKCanvasView Native SKGLView with OpenGL ES
Mac Catalyst Native raster SKCanvasView Native SKMetalView with Metal
Windows SKXamlCanvas SKSwapChainPanel with ANGLE/OpenGL ES

The current MAUI projects target Android, iOS, Mac Catalyst, and Windows. They do not target tvOS, macOS, or Tizen.

On iOS, the SKGLView handler is marked obsolete starting with iOS 12 because it uses OpenGL ES. The MAUI package does not expose a separate SKMetalView control for iOS. Use SKCanvasView or provide a native/custom Metal integration when an iOS GPU path is required.

On Mac Catalyst, the MAUI SKGLView handler uses Metal internally, but the callback type is still the MAUI SKPaintGLSurfaceEventArgs.

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