unexplained behavior for a VisualBrush - c#

I have a VisualBrush that contains a MediaElement. Here is the xaml:
<Rectangle Name="myRectangle" Grid.Row="1">
<Rectangle.Fill>
<VisualBrush x:Name="myVisuaBrush" Stretch="Uniform">
<VisualBrush.Visual>
<MediaElement Name="me_zoneOneAdvertisement" />
</VisualBrush.Visual>
</VisualBrush>
</Rectangle.Fill>
</Rectangle>
The video plays just fine with the c# code below:
this.me_zoneOneAdvertisement.Source = new Uri("C:\\a.mp4");
this.me_zoneOneAdvertisement.LoadedBehavior = MediaState.Manual;
this.me_zoneOneAdvertisement.Play();
ContentWindow contentWindow = new ContentWindow();
However, the whole point of using a MediaBrush is to extend the capability of the MediaPlayer without wasting resources. When I try to open up a new Window and then fill an element in that window, I can see nothing in the current window where it used to work, and the new window that opens up has no content either. Here is the code that breaks everything. dislay1 is a rectangle, and I am trying to fill it with the visual brush. Why would this prevent the video from playing in the original window, and why doesn't it work in the new window I just created?
contentWindow.display1.Fill = this.myVisuaBrush;
P.S. - I can get this to work if I declare the media brush as a page level resource. Still though, I don't understand why I can't use media brush from the body of the xaml to fill an element in another Window.

The MSDN documentation of VisualBrush says the following:
However, the root UIElement is essentially isolated from the rest of the system; styles, storyboards, and external layout can't permeate this boundary. Therefore, you should explicitly specify the size of the root UIElement, because its only parent is the VisualBrush and therefore it cannot automatically size itself to the area being painted. For more information about layout in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), see the Layout.
That means that the Visual inside the brush is isolated from the layout process. I think this causes your problems if you specify the visual inline.
I hope this helps a little.

Related

How are the semi-transparent blur windows in OSX and W10 Start Menu created?

I'm currently working on a window that focuses on some elements on screen while blurring the rest of the area.
Using common methods like the WindowCompositionAttribute and the others are not suitable for this situation as there are limitations to it and it doesn't meet the standards regarding the intensity of the blur, contrast and colors which should be strict.
What i have managed to solve my problem was building an image stream with a light image encoder to enhance performance but then that wasn't enough. So, i thought of writing a motion detection algorithm to only steam when there's motion, but it still didn't change the performance drops.
What i need is something like those of the native OSX windows and Windows 10 Start Menu, so how are they created and run efficiently without any heavy load on the performance?
To create a new Window from scratch you have to set WindowsStyle to none (AllowTransparency="True" can be set only along with WindowsStyle="None") and from there build the style of the window.
However, you will face several issues if you follow this approach:
-no buttons (minimize, close)
-no support for fullscreen (taskbar issues)
I would suggest you to have a base view and include the other views inside the main view(which has the blur effect).
The blur effect could be obtained easily by doing something like below:
<Grid>
<Grid Margin="5" Background="#FF3782DC">
<!--<Grid.Background>
<Image Source="test.png"></Image>
</Grid.Background>-->
<Grid.Effect>
<BlurEffect Radius="100" />
</Grid.Effect>
</Grid>
<TextBlock
x:Name="textBlock"
Height="61"
Margin="136,82,211,0"
VerticalAlignment="Top"
Text="test"
TextWrapping="Wrap" />
</Grid>
I've set a color for the background, but you could set an image as background and by default it would be blurred (here you should set a binding and every time the view changes, you have to take a snapshot of the screen and set the source of the Image). However you will probably have some performance issues, but with a good encoder (JPEGencoder) it will be fast enough.
Hope that helps you!

C# WPF element position not in correct place

I'm developing a vision processing application using WPF and EmguCV 3.0. My issue is that the element isn't positioned correctly on-screen. I have viewed what the padding is, and it returns all sides as 0. The ImageBox element from Emgu, which is what I am using to display the images, is encapsulated in a Windows Forms Host control. I have two other ImageBox elements, which display properly. Each of the ImageBox elements are within their own tab in a TabControl. On startup, I set the width and height properties of all the ImageBoxes and their canvases.
An additional thing to note is that the other two ImageBoxes also overflow out of their boundaries, but are reset back into the boundaries after switching back and forth between the tabs. This only happens once.
Here is a link to screenshots of what the UI looks like. http://imgur.com/a/RwG17
Additionally, here is the XAML and C# code for the ImageBoxes.
<TabItem x:Name="ImageTabControlHSV">
<TabItem.Header>
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
<TextBlock Text="HSV" />
</StackPanel>
</TabItem.Header>
<Canvas x:Name="HSVImageCanvas">
<WindowsFormsHost>
<emui:ImageBox x:Name="HSVImageBox"/>
</WindowsFormsHost>
</Canvas>
</TabItem>
//Width and height properties are gotten from camera image.
HSVImageBox.Width = ratioWidth;
HSVImageBox.Height = ratioHeight;
HSVImageCanvas.Width = width;
HSVImageCanvas.Height = height;
HSVImageCanvas.MaxHeight = height;
HSVImageCanvas.MaxWidth = width;
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
UPDATE: Putting a counter for how many times the problematic ImageBox has been selected and using Canvas.SetTop() and Canvas.SetLeft() seems to be a workaround. I would still like to know why the canvas is changing its position.
You might try performing a Canvas.SetTop(HSVImageCanvas, HSVImageCanvas.Top) and Canvas.SetLeft(HSVImageCanvas, HSVImageCanvas.Left).
Doug

Circular CaptureElement camera stream in Windows 10

Wherever you look in Windows 10, there are circles. It's fairly easy to make images circular, but camera is a bit different. Is there a simple XAML way to clip the camera stream in a CaptureElement to make it a circle?
I tried putting it in a border, but CaptureElement doesn't care about its borders. I also tried using the Clip property, but it can only clip to RectangleGeometry.
One way would certainly be to grab CaptureElement frames, transforming them to images (frame by frame) and applying to Image element, and then clipping the image, but it seems like that would have awful performance.
Is there something in the framework to make this really simple, but I'm not seeing it?
Well after seeing that might be the background is always black of the Canvas DirectX the only way I see is:
1.- Clip a rectangle with an ellipse in Inkscape for instance.
2.- Copy to Expression Design and Ctrl-Shift-C (to copy XAML)
3.- Place inside a ViewBox only the path generated
<Grid Width="300" Height="300">
<CaptureElement Name="PreviewControl" Stretch="Uniform" Width="280" Height="280" />
<Viewbox Width="280" Height="280">
<Path Width="813.701" Height="813.701" Canvas.Left="-33.3503" Canvas.Top="-45.3503" Stretch="Fill" Fill="#FF800080" Data="F1 M -33.3503,-45.3503L -33.3503,768.35L 780.35,768.35L 780.35,-45.3503L -33.3503,-45.3503 Z M 373.54,158.095C 485.863,158.095 576.985,249.137 576.985,361.54C 576.985,473.863 485.863,564.985 373.54,564.985C 261.137,564.985 170.095,473.863 170.095,361.54C 170.095,249.137 261.137,158.095 373.54,158.095 Z "/>
</Viewbox>
</Grid>
With that you can place an image in the path or a solid color, that's the only way I see to do it. Hope it helps

Tint a partially transparent image in WPF

How can I tint/colorize an image in WPF (using MVVM) without sacrificing performance? A purely XAML solution would be ideal, as modifying bitmaps in the code will cause performance loss with lots of changing images. The image is made up of more than simple shapes, so it is not possible using a path.
Unlike WinForms/GDI+, WPF does not seem to contain any easy ways to colorize/tint an image as it is being rendered. Two ideas for accomplishing this are, using a shader, or overlaying a colored rectangle over the image.
I decided to try the rectangle route and found that it works. Basically, all you need to do is overlay a colored rectangle over your image, and use an OpacityMask to restrict the color fill to a certain area. OpacityMask is primarily used with paths, but it can take any kind of brush, including an ImageBrush. This means you can use your image as a "stencil" for the colored fill.
Example: (Taken from my application where a user can "highlight" a section of a map, the actual image looks like this)
Before Overlay & Mask
After Overlay & Mask
Here is all of the required XAML for this:
<Image
Source="{Binding MyImage}"
Width="150"
Height="150" />
<Rectangle Width="150" Height="150">
<Rectangle.Fill>
<SolidColorBrush Color="{Binding Color}"/>
</Rectangle.Fill>
<Rectangle.OpacityMask>
<ImageBrush ImageSource="{Binding MyImage}"/>
</Rectangle.OpacityMask>
</Rectangle>
To bind the color to a brush as I did, use a ColorToBrushConverter.

Refresh BitmapCache?

How do I refresh a BitmapCache in WPF? When I apply a BitmapCache, it stretches the window content I cached when I change the window size.
I need to know in either C# or VB .NET.
Depending on how much the window size is growing by, you could try using the "RenderAtScale" attribute, e.g. (xaml):
<Path ...>
<Path.CacheMode>
<BitmapCache RenderAtScale="2"/>
</Path.CacheMode>
</Path>
(C#):
Path path = new Path();
BitmapCache bitmapCache = new BitmapCache();
bitmapCache.RenderAtScale = 2;
path.CacheMode = bitmapCache;
This would cache the path at twice its original size, meaning that it shouldn't look fuzzy when scaled up.
I know this isn't what you asked to do but it might solve your problem.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/llobo/archive/2009/11/10/new-wpf-features-cached-composition.aspx
In the above link it says:
"Note that changing the UIElement subtree or these properties (EnableClearType\RenderAtScale) will cause the cache to be regenerated."
So everytime the window is stretched, do one of the above to cause the cache to be regenerated/refreshed - I would imagine flipping the EnableClearType= property would be the simplest to try first.

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