newbie advice regarding real time graphics editor

[Boyd]

All of the "plugins" I have found revolve around supporting and or rendering different file formats or image manipulation.  Which is fine but not what I am looking for.

 

Paint.net as an image editor is fine.

 

What I need to do is "overlay" the graphics image with "components."

The components would represent guages, thermometers, lightswitches, fans, pumps, etc.

Within the editor I need to assign "point names" to these components.

At the "save" function, the static image is saved in one format ( bmp, png, jpeg, etc ) but the "dynamic" definitions must be saved in another: either in a binary file or in a collection of sql database items.

The "components" must remain "components" on subsequent edits, not morphed into the background image.

 

 

A display utility to read these image and component structures, access the database and render the final image, refresh as database values change, is a separate project, beyond the scope of this post.

 

 

So my question is the best way to go about this.  For starters, I suspect I would create a DLL that creates a new menu item on the Paint.net menu bar.  That's my first stumbling block: how to import a new "menu item?"

 

Also, I presume the "component" placement would be done as a "layer" so as to keep separate from the static background image.

 

Words of wisdom, particularly how to create and import a new Menu item?

 

Boyd

[Zagna]

Absolutely impossible. 

 

What you want is a diagramming software.

[Rick Brewster]

You cannot add menu items to Paint.NET. Only effects, adjustments and file types.

 

And I agree with Zagna: You don't want Paint.NET. You want software that's actually designed to do this stuff.