What are some alternative methods in PHP for creating and manipulating graphics, aside from the Image functions?

One alternative method in PHP for creating and manipulating graphics is using the GD library. This library provides functions for creating and manipulating images in various formats such as JPEG, PNG, and GIF. By utilizing the functions provided by the GD library, you can dynamically generate images, apply filters, resize images, and perform other graphic operations.

// Example of using the GD library to create a simple image
$width = 200;
$height = 100;
$image = imagecreatetruecolor($width, $height);

$background_color = imagecolorallocate($image, 255, 255, 255); // white background
$text_color = imagecolorallocate($image, 0, 0, 0); // black text

imagestring($image, 5, 50, 40, 'Hello World!', $text_color);

header('Content-Type: image/png');
imagepng($image);
imagedestroy($image);