Bitmap class in WPF - wpf

I'm working with Emgu Cv in Winforms to do face recognition using Kinect. Now, i want to move to WPF. However, the EmguCv library support only Bitmap class.
Can i use the Bitmap class (used in Winforms) in WPF ? if not, is there an other method to use Emgu cv with kinect in WPF?
Thanks.

System.Drawing.Bitmap can not be used directly as image source for WPF, so you have to convert it to System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BitmapSource.
The best way to do it is by using Imaging.CreateBitmapSourceFromHBitmap.
You can use an extension method:
[DllImport("gdi32")]
private static extern int DeleteObject(IntPtr o);
public static BitmapSource ToBitmapSource(this System.Drawing.Bitmap source)
{
if (source == null)
{
throw new ArgumentNullException("source");
}
IntPtr ip = source.GetHbitmap();
try
{
return System.Windows.Interop.Imaging.CreateBitmapSourceFromHBitmap(ip,
IntPtr.Zero, Int32Rect.Empty,
System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BitmapSizeOptions.FromEmptyOptions());
}
finally
{
DeleteObject(ip);
}
}
Please note that you must invoke DeleteObject, because Bitmap.GetHbitmap() leaks a GDI handle (see this answer).
Once you have a BitmapSource, you can display it using an Image control and by setting the Source property.
You can read more about WPF imaging in this article: Imaging Overview

Related

Threading with WPF Images (System.InvalidOperationException)

I'm using a thread to get an image from a website and shoot it back to the parent form (WPF) to display. I ran into an issue and have managed to debug it to this example:
public void Watch()
{
while (true)
{
Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(1, 1);
BitmapImage bmpImg = new BitmapImage();
this.SetImage(bmp, bmpImg);
}
}
public delegate void SetImageCallback(Bitmap bmp, BitmapImage bmpImg);
private void SetImage(Bitmap bmp, BitmapImage bmpImg)
{
if (!this.imgVideo.Dispatcher.CheckAccess())
{
SetImageCallback del = new SetImageCallback(SetImage);
this.Dispatcher.Invoke(del, bmp, bmpImg);
}
else
{
Bitmap bitmap = bmp;
BitmapImage bitmapImage = bmpImg;
}
}
Keep in mind that Watch() runs on its own thread. If I use the bitmap object (which I can use with PictureBox in Window Forms) everything works great. That is, debugging this code, when I get to the line
Bitmap bitmap = bmp;
And inspect the variable bmp, everything is great and works as expected. HOWEVER, when I get to the next line
BitmapImage bitmapImage = bmpImg;
And inpsect the variable bmpImage, I get a ton of System.InvalidOperationException's. When this is in practice and gets assigned to a WPF Image object, it says that "The calling thread cannot access this object because a different thread owns it." Why am I running into this issue with WPF BitmapImages (which are required to set an ImageSource) but NOT in Windows Forms Bitmap objects (which can be used to set a PictureBox)? How do I fix this in WPF?
Most objects in WPF are of this category: they cannot be shared between different threads. However certain low-level resources such as brushes and bitmaps are derived from a special class called Freezable that if frozen can be shared between different threads. Of course once an object is frozen is can no longer be modified in any way. To freeze a freezable object simply call Freeze and this will prevent cross-thread exceptions.
Instead of
if (!this.imgVideo.Dispatcher.CheckAccess())
{
SetImageCallback del = new SetImageCallback(SetImage);
this.Dispatcher.Invoke(del, bmp, bmpImg);
}
try using :
if (!App.Current.Dispatcher.CheckAccess())
App.Current.Dispatcher.Invoke(DispatcherPriority.Normal, new Action<CustomObject>(SetImage),CustomeObjectInstance );
Here Cutom object will be a wrapper class wrapping
Bitmap bmp, BitmapImage bmpImg
Obviously, your SetImage signature will change to
SetImage(CutomObject custObj)
I have not tested the code but this may solve the issue.
Let us know if this works so that some poor soul can be benefitted from this post.
All the best!
Sid

WPF Image Formats and Binding

I have a project which requires be to convert an in memory System.Drawing.Bitmap into an in memory BitmapImage so I can bind the BitmapImage to an Image control via XAML. The problem I am running into is during the conversion the original bitmap gets shrunk and is very blurry.
This is very bad because the original bitmap is a bar code and I need this bar code to stay readable. Is there anything I can do to preserve the integrity of my bitmap? Or is it possible to bind a System.Drawing.Bitmap to an WPF Image control without first saving the bitmap and using a URI?
Also can anyone explain to me the difference between all these image formats? It seems as if there are a ton of them, they reside in numerous namespaces and it is a pain to convert between them.
EDIT.....
public static BitmapImage GetBitmapImage(Bitmap bmp)
{
MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
bmp.Save(ms, ImageFormat.Bmp);
BitmapImage bmpI = new BitmapImage();
bmpI.BeginInit();
bmpI.StreamSource = ms;
bmpI.EndInit();
ms.Close();
ms.Dispose();
return bmpI;
}
Have you tried different bitmap scaling modes?
For example:
Image RenderOptions.BitmapScalingMode="HighQuality" ...
In my opinion, the easiest way to get rid of all those burdens is to create a user control, then put a
WindowsFormsHost
on to that control. After that you put a windows forms image to the host, and in the underlying code of the user control, you can create a dependency property to bind data and update changes to the image control.
Cheers.

WPF & WinForms Integration and Application Class

I am planning to create a WPF application with a main window which would launch various WinForms. Some of the WinForms use the System.Windows.Forms.Application class (DoEvents, Application.Path, etc). Do you think that there will be a problem in doing this?
Can I still use System.Windows.Forms.Application.DoEvents() from a WinForm that is launched from a WPF application?
The main problem will the ability to instantiate the Windows Forms window and set it's owner to that of the WPF window. The Winforms will want a IWin32Window which a WPF window isn't. To get around this, you need to make a custom class.
I found this code on Mark Rendle's blog (I've copied it here as I had to use the Google Cache to access the page).
LINK - WARNING: May not work
class Shim : IWin32Window
{
public Shim(System.Windows.Window owner)
{
// Create a WindowInteropHelper for the WPF Window
interopHelper = new WindowInteropHelper(owner);
}
private WindowInteropHelper interopHelper;
#region IWin32Window Members
public IntPtr Handle
{
get
{
// Return the surrogate handle
return interopHelper.Handle;
}
}
#endregion
}
and it's method of use:
namespace System.Windows.Forms
{
public static class WPFInteropExtensions
{
public static DialogResult ShowDialog(
this System.Windows.Forms.Form form,
System.Windows.Window owner)
{
Shim shim = new Shim(owner);
return form.ShowDialog(shim);
}
}
}
I haven't tested this code, but reading around the internet, it appears that you can host Winforms windows inside of a WPF app.
I just found this link on MSDN that has a very detailed description of how to interop a Win32 control/window in a WPF application.
Hope these help you out.
I've been doing this sometimes and didn't encounter any problem.
However i don't really recommend it, you should prefer WPF when you are in a WPF Application.
for exemple if you want application path use this :
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location

Read WPF ResourceDictionaries from WinForms

Is it possible to read WPF ResourceDictionaries from WinForms? If yes, how?
When you add resources dictionaries to an WPF project the build action is automatically set to Page. This means that the compiler generates a BAML stream and adds it to the resources of the assembly.
Since WPF has the built-in functionality to read a BAML stream but its API is not public, we have to write a little helper class that access the internal method over reflection.
public static class BamlReader
{
public static object Load(Stream stream)
{
ParserContext pc = new ParserContext();
MethodInfo loadBamlMethod = typeof(XamlReader).GetMethod("LoadBaml",
BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Static)
return loadBamlMethod.Invoke(null, new object[] { stream, pc, null, false });
}
}
// Usage:
StreamResourceInfo sri = System.Windows.Application.GetResourceStream(
new Uri("/MyAssemblyName;component/MyResourceDict.xaml", UriKind.Relative));
ResourceDictionary resources = (ResourceDictionary)BamlReader.Load(sri.Stream);
Source: How to read WPF ResourceDictionaries from WinForms

How can one host Flash content in a WPF application and use transparency?

How can I go about hosting flash content inside a WPF form and still use transparency/alpha on my WPF window? Hosting a WinForms flash controls does not allow this.
Unless the control you use to display the Flash content is built in WPF, you will run in to these "airspace" issues. Every display technology from Win32 to WinForms used HWNDs "under the hood", but WPF uses DirectX. The Window Manager in Windows however, still only understands HWNDs, so WPF apps have one top-level HWND-based window, and everything under that is done in DirectX (actually things like context menus and tooltips also have top-level HWNDs as well). Adam Nathan has a very good description of WPF interop in this article.
Although I haven't done it, you can probably use the WebBrowser control found in WPF 3.5 sp1 to wrap your Flash content within WPF. I'm not sure how the transparency will be affected though.
Can you use Expression to convert the flash content to XAML? I believe that there are tools in there or off to the side that do this.
Just have been struggling with same problem of how to upload & Make WPF transparent with ability of displaying Flash, because if you enable on your MainWindow "Allow transparency" Flash will not show once the application will run.
1) I used WebBrowser Control to play Flash(.swf) files. They are on my PC, however it can play from internet or wherever you have hosted them. Don't forget to name your WebBrowser Control to get to it in C#.
private void Window_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
MyHelper.ExtendFrame(this, new Thickness(-1));
this.MyBrowser.Navigate(#"C:\Happy\Download\flash\PlayWithMEGame.swf");
}
2) Now for transparency. I have set in WPF 'false' to "Allow Transparency" and set "Window Style" to 'None'. After that I have used information from HERE and HERE and created a following code that produced desired effect of allowing transparency on MainWindow and running Flash at same time, here is my code:
public class MyHelper
{
public static bool ExtendFrame(Window window, Thickness margin)
{
IntPtr hwnd = new WindowInteropHelper(window).Handle;
window.Background = Brushes.Transparent;
HwndSource.FromHwnd(hwnd).CompositionTarget.BackgroundColor = Colors.Transparent;
MARGINS margins = new MARGINS(margin);
DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea(hwnd, ref margins);
return true;
}
[DllImport("dwmapi.dll", PreserveSig = false)]
static extern void DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea(IntPtr hwnd, ref MARGINS margins);
}
struct MARGINS
{
public MARGINS(Thickness t)
{
Left = (int)t.Left;
Right = (int)t.Right;
Top = (int)t.Top;
Bottom = (int)t.Bottom;
}
public int Left;
public int Right;
public int Top;
public int Bottom;
}
And called it from Window_Loaded() + you need 'below' line for 'DllImport' to work.
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Windows.Interop;

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