WPF blurry vector icons - wpf

I'm not able to get crisp icons in a WPF project. I've tried several solutions but the results are terrible when the icons are downscaled. The starting files are .ai (Illustrator) that I've exported to xaml code using Expression Design
Here is an example
blurry icons example

First of all, you can try to play with properties SnapsToDevicePixels and UseLayoutRounding.
Next, please check what coordinates your vector images use. In order to get the sharp lines, you must either move your coordinate system to (0.5, 0.5) or use half-integer coordinates (e.g. 0.5, 2.5, 11.5).
Please, have a look at this MSDN topic.
There is also a perfect article on this topic. It's in Russian, but you can try to use Google Translate for it.

Related

How to build the following visual

I am not a real designer and I would like to know if anyone have an idea how can I build the following visual :
The idea is to get 2 rings where inside I will draw secific number of pie represented as "Interactive shape or button". Base on the number of shape, they should cover the whole circle.
In addition to that, I need to be able to interact with each pie shape, and inside and oustide edge of those shape should be a perfect arc based on the circle diameter.
As I am not a perfect designer, how can I represent this visual ?
I was thinking of using a custom panel but then how to draw each panel shape in order that they gets perfect inside and ouside arc and offer interactivity with each of them ?
Thanks for your help
I would appreciate samples as well
Theres actually a Silverlight tutorial on making something exactly like this.
If you didnt want to use that, you could always do it in javascript. Here's an example using Rapheal js
I would recommend looking into WPF Geometry and how you can create custom controls (such as the Circular Gauge Custom Control over on CodeProject) using said Geometry.
I've never created a control quite like what your suggesting, but I would image you would define some form of area that can contain children and style it so that it forms the circular shape you want. Then, adding interactive regions should be as simple as adding controls to standard containers.
Here's a link to a "generic radial panel that can be used to host any items" which subclasses Panel.

Simulate a handwritten signature in Silverlight: (e.g. A pen progressively draws the lines)

I'd like to have Silverlight draw the blue "L" and "C" in the image below, preferably in a way that the thickness of the line is maintained and speeds/up slows/down at the correct locations to simulate a handwritten signature.
(source: lamontconsulting.com)
Can anyone point me to the right way to do this? Thanks!
The first this is to take this raster graphic and turn it vector. There are different ways to do that, but I find Adobe Illustrator to be the best. It's got a feature called LiveTrace that will do this for you (PDF file). After you've got that, you could import that into Expression Blend and turn it into XAML (a PathGeometry). Once in Blend, you can animate any which way you like. What you'd want for this is a key frame animation.

How to overlay text or markers on an bmp image

I'm working with an image processing project where I'm trying to locate features on a .bmp image. I'm writing the whole source code in C.
The algorithm I'm developing is going to search for some features, if a desired feature was found by the algorithm then it is going to create a point (x co-ord, y co-ord), now I want to overlay this point on the image with a green or red DOT.
As of now its only a point, later on I wish to draw a box around a group of features- for example a face.
I don't know how to do this, I'm developing this in Linux (Ubuntu 9.04) environment, can anyone suggest what I should do?
Vikram
Take a look at ImageMagick as well. I've used it in the past with Perl, but it has a C interface as well.
ImageMagick® is a software suite to create, edit, and compose bitmap images. It can read, convert and write images in a variety of formats (over 100) including DPX, EXR, GIF, JPEG, JPEG-2000, PDF, PhotoCD, PNG, Postscript, SVG, and TIFF. Use ImageMagick to translate, flip, mirror, rotate, scale, shear and transform images, adjust image colors, apply various special effects, or draw text, lines, polygons, ellipses and Bézier curves.
I would recommend using Cairo for your drawing. What you can do is load the image into an Image Surface, do your processing on the image surface using direct pixel access, and then use a Cairo context to draw what you need. The library also supports text using libpango, and Ubuntu loves the use of Cairo since GTK uses it. There are many tutorials for Cairo as well if you search around. The main site has some already.

How can I stretch bitmap in WPF without smoothing pixels

I'm working on SEM image processing application, written in WPF. I have an image display control, derived from Canvas, which displays image & overlays using DrawingVisuals (one for each "layer"). It also implements Zoom & Pan using scale & translate transform, applied on DrawingVisuals.
When I zoom in the image to see individual pixels, they are displayed smooth, evidently using bilinear filtering to stretch the bitmap (no surprise, as WPF is rendered through Direct3D). However, for my use case, I would rather see individual pixels as sharp boxes, as usual in any image editor like Photoshop. That's why user of my app zooms the image -> to be able to operate on pixel level.
Is there such option in WPF (other than manually stretching the bitmap before displaying it)? I was not able to find anything.
thanks in advance,
Zbynek Vrastil
Czech Republic
Finally found an answer, with some help from Experts Exchange. Class RenderOptions defines attached property BitmapScalingMode, which can be set to NearestNeighbor. So,
RenderOptions.SetBitmapScalingMode(imageDisplay, BitmapScalingMode.NearestNeighbor);
does the trick.
Zbynek Vrastil
Hate to put a dampener on things, but if NearestNeighbor works like GDI+, then this will give you a limited success. As you increase magnification in areas of high contrast you might not get the desired results. In GDI+ you find blacks becoming blue, and whites becoming red - again I stress in areas of high contrast! If this isn't the case in WPF, think yourself lucky!
Perhaps a WCF developer could confirm that?
I've found that there are more options to consider, but I can only speak for the GDI+ Graphics class, which might be useful to someone.
Graphics graph = e.Graphics;
graph.InterpolationMode = InterpolationMode.NearestNeighbor;
graph.CompositingQuality = CompositingQuality.AssumeLinear;
graph.SmoothingMode = SmoothingMode.None;
This works for me. I think the SmoothingMode is the trick. Hope this helps someone else out there.

Get path geometry from image

If i have a logo, let's say done as a jpg or even a png. Any suggestion for how I can use that to define a path geometry? It would be really good if any suggestions could be provided for how i can do it in blend.
Thanks
Yes - I just tackled this problem for an LOB application two days ago.
I can't offer advice for Blend (though I've read that it can be done in Expression Designer). However, the best free tool I've found for this is called InkScape (http://www.inkscape.org).
It's opensource, and while it's intended primarily for editing SVG vector-based images, it has two key features that are useful to us WPFers:
It can vectorize (i.e. "trace") raster images like bitmaps and jpegs, albeit not as well as one would hope, and
It can export the vector image as XAML
You'll invariably find that you get better results from loading vector formats (like SVG, EMF, WMF, etc) and saving to XAML, than if you try to convert a bitmap/jpeg... simply because the process of vectorizing a raster image is error prone at best. So if you want to bring a company logo into XAML, try to get hold of the source files used to create the logo (perhaps done in Illustrator?) and import that into InkScape.
If this post is helpful, please be kind and give it a one-up.
Jasema is a terrific tool right for the job.
Also, don't be shy to use Blend - it is somewhat more difficult to use (drawing shapes using pen) but it gets easier pretty fast. Switch on gridlines and optionally snap to them for good results.
What both Jasema and Blend are lacking, is the ability to easily create shapes with a central symmetry (like stars), so I took parts from Jasema and created my own tool (named Radius) that works a bit like a combination of a ruler and compass.
I have a good idea but you're png, bmp, jpg or other non vector file is must be very simple because we need best scan results and only use inkscape.
Step: Drag and drop your file workspace on Inkscape, download free.
Tip: If your image is color white, Top menu item File->Document Properties-> heck Checkerboard Background and if you want uncheck Page border show.
Step: Top menu item Path-> Trace Bitmap-> Mode check what you want property, i usually use color property and if your file is png check Remove Background then click OK, then wait again Ok button is Enable and close window.
Step: Now you have a two layer, top layer vektor file and bottom layer your file. Select vector file and top menu item Edit-> XML Editor-> select svg path and look side column, d name propery in your data path value.
But this method may not always work or may not give the desired results and draw your own shapes with the scape so you can get the path data from the XML editor.
Example, my first tests this like:
and after working on it some more:
I've solved my problem (export an image as XAML) using Microsoft Expression Design 4 (Free Version). I've downloaded from the link
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=36180
As input, I had Adobe Ilustrator files.
Adobe Illustrator / CorelDraw is perhaps the best tool out there for these operations that I have used.
Personally, I prefer illustrator for on-screen media. These tracings can be exported into several formats such as EPS, SVG, AI, or even XAML (with this plugin)
Best of Luck !!!!
I have recently been struggling with this myself. I had a set of icons done in data and needed to update them to look nicer.
I tried everything, manually typing them out. drawing in svg, converting svg to xaml.
in the end i found a list of open source icons from google material icons.
I then used this to convert from the svg files to data
https://github.com/BerndK/SvgToXaml
It works well but not for the icons i drew myself.
I decided to place all the icons data i convert into an app i built myself that will give you the data and a preview of the icon. feel free to use and contribute. I will keep updating as much as i can.
https://github.com/sgreaves1/XamlIcons
Convert your image from png to svg in online converter, then drop file into this site http://inloop.github.io/svg2android/ and you will see pathData of your image like below shown in my image.

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