What Is the Rendering Engine?
The Flutter engine represents the core component of the Flutter framework responsible for rendering the user interface (UI) and displaying it on the screen. It maintains a tree of rendered objects, such as widgets and layouts, which are responsible for defining their own layout, painting their visual representation, and handling input events. The rendering engine in Flutter performs two main processes: layout and paint. In the layout phase, the engine analyzes the render object tree to determine the size and position of each element/object based on the constraints provided by the parent. Once the layout phase is complete, the engine analyzes the tree again, instructing each render object to paint itself onto a canvas.
The rendering engine in Flutter takes advantage of hardware acceleration and optimizes performance by minimizing unnecessary repaints. This allows for high-performance graphics rendering and smooth animations. By leveraging the capabilities of the rendering engine, Flutter enables developers to create fast and fluid user interfaces across different platforms and devices.