ASP.NET TextRenderer.DrawText Awful Text Images - c#

Since I've tried to draw string with every combination of smoothing and rendering with Graphics.DrawString() I was thinking that text renderer would do a better job drawing my strings but I think was wrong.
This is how it is supposed to look like:
And this is how it looks like:
Here is my code:
Graphics objGraphics2 = Graphics.FromImage(objBitmap);
objGraphics2.SmoothingMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.SmoothingMode.HighQuality;
objGraphics2.TextRenderingHint = System.Drawing.Text.TextRenderingHint.AntiAlias;
objGraphics2.CompositingQuality = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.CompositingQuality.HighQuality;
objGraphics2.InterpolationMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.InterpolationMode.HighQualityBilinear;
Font textFont = new Font(textFontFamily, PxtoEm(textSize));
SolidBrush b = new SolidBrush(textColor);
TextRenderer.DrawText(objGraphics2, textValue, textFont, new Rectangle(0, 0, Width, Height), textColor);
Is my PxtoEm method wrong?
public float PxtoEm(int px)
{
float em = (float)(Convert.ToDouble(Convert.ToDouble(px) * Convert.ToDouble(72) / Convert.ToDouble(objBitmap.HorizontalResolution)));
return em;
}
I need some suggestions because this is really awful, it gets worse with larger fonts and images aren't shrunk.
UPDATE: Got it working with bigger fonts(ie. 20px) but with smaller fonts it gets kind of erased on some letters:
This is how it's suposed to be with font Arial 10px:
This is result with Graphics.DrawString()
As you can see it really isn't very good but closest I got. I made some changes to code and got better results with larger font:
This is how it's suposed to be with font Arial 20px:
This is drawing result:
And here is the changed code(I droped em method and used pixels directly, switched to Graphics.DrawString() instead of TextRenderer.DrawText()
Graphics objGraphics = Graphics.FromImage(objBitmap);
objGraphics.SmoothingMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.SmoothingMode.HighQuality;
objGraphics.TextRenderingHint = System.Drawing.Text.TextRenderingHint.AntiAliasGridFit;
objGraphics.CompositingQuality = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.CompositingQuality.HighQuality;
objGraphics.InterpolationMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.InterpolationMode.HighQualityBicubic;
objGraphics.PixelOffsetMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.PixelOffsetMode.HighQuality;
Font textFont = new Font(textFontFamily, textSize,GraphicsUnit.Pixel);
SolidBrush b = new SolidBrush(textColor);
PointF origin = new PointF((float)TextLeft,(float)TextTop);
StringFormat format = StringFormat.GenericTypographic;
objGraphics.DrawString(textValue, textFont, b , origin, format);
If someone has some suggestion to maybe write different method for smaller text sizes and use above code for larger as it works nicely, post it and I'll try it!
UPDATE 3: Finally found solution for everything, and solution was rather simple:
DON'T USE TRANSPARENT BACKGROUND!
And settings are:
objGraphics.SmoothingMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.SmoothingMode.HighQuality;
objGraphics.TextRenderingHint = System.Drawing.Text.TextRenderingHint.ClearTypeGridFit; // <-- important!
objGraphics.CompositingQuality = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.CompositingQuality.HighQuality;
objGraphics.InterpolationMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.InterpolationMode.HighQualityBicubic;
objGraphics.PixelOffsetMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.PixelOffsetMode.HighQuality;
objGraphics.TextContrast = 0;
Here is final image with these settings on white background:
Exactly the same, thanks for suggestions and replies.

I'm not sure it will help but why not create your font without the function call, like this:
Font textFont = new Font(textFontFamily, textSize, GraphicsUnit.Pixel);

I built something to generate image buttons using similar functionality and I had issues with kerneling and the font not stretching to the desired with. The following settings got me really close to what I wanted but still not 100%.
objGraphics2.PixelOffsetMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.PixelOffsetMode.HighQuality;
objGraphics2.TextRenderingHint = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.TextRenderingHint.AntiAliasGridFit;

Set Graphics.TextRenderingHint to SingleBitPerPixelGridFit.

I'm not sure if this will solve the issue, but I had a similar problem with drawing text in Direct3D, check out PixelOffsetMode, set it to Half.

Related

Graphics is blank when trying to turn anti-aliasing off for a bitmap (C#)

What I'm trying to do:
Since in my bitmaps there are some unwanted white edges around the picture that result from anti-aliasing as pointed out from another user from stackoverflow.
I'm trying to convert an image that's inputted into a bitmap, convert bitmap into a Graphics object so that I can set the Smooth Mode to none, and then finally convert that Graphics object to a bitmap so that it can be copied by the user after setting it to the clipboard. I'm not sure if this is a good way of getting rid anti-aliasing in bitmaps but I'm definitely interested in improvements and suggestions.
The issue I'm facing:
The result of the image after is completely blank and does not contain any of the pixels that are previously found in the original bitmap. Here's the result:
This issue applies to all pictures no matter what their format is.
My code:
public PicGen(PictureBox pictureBox)
{
Clipboard.Clear();
Bitmap firstImage = new(pictureBox.Image, pictureBox.Width, pictureBox.Height);
RectangleF cloneRect = new RectangleF(0, 0, firstImage.Width, firstImage.Height);
System.Drawing.Imaging.PixelFormat format = firstImage.PixelFormat;
Bitmap cloneBitmap = firstImage.Clone(cloneRect, format);
Graphics AntiARemover = Graphics.FromImage(cloneBitmap);
AntiARemover.SmoothingMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.SmoothingMode.None;
Bitmap finalImg = new(52, 52, AntiARemover);
Clipboard.SetImage(finalImg);
Color backColorBottom = firstImage.GetPixel(0, 0);
firstImage.ReplaceColor(backColorBottom, Color.FromArgb(54, 57, 63));
Bitmap finalImg = new(52, 52, AntiARemover);
From the documentation for this bitmap constructor:
The new Bitmap that this method creates takes its horizontal and vertical resolution from the DpiX and DpiY properties of g, respectively.
If you want create a new image with the content from another you need to call one of the DrawImage methods. You should also dispose your graphics object, and any temporary bitmaps you may use.
using var finalImg = new Bitmap(52,52);
using var graphics = Graphics.FromImage(finalImg);
graphics.SmoothingMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.SmoothingMode.None;
graphics.DrawImage(cloneBitmap)
However, edge artifacts typically occur when combining two images using an alpha channel, see Premultiplied alpha. In your example I can only see one input image, so I'm really not sure what it is you are actually trying to do. If you need to convert to premultiplied alpha you can use the following code to convert the color for each pixel
premultiplied.R = (byte)(straight.R * straight.A / 255);
premultiplied.G = (byte)(straight.G * straight.A / 255);
premultiplied.B = (byte)(straight.B * straight.A / 255);
premultiplied.A = straight.A;

Graphics.DrawString renders text with black outline on a transparent background

I'm drawing a string on a Bitmap with transparent background using Graphics.DrawString() and I get text with a black contour, when the Font size is smaller than 23 millimeters (the Font is created with GraphicsUnit.Millimeter).
Code:
Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(2000, 2000);
Color alpha = Color.FromArgb(0, 0, 0, 0);
for (int x = 0; x < bmp.Width; x++)
for (int y = 0; y < bmp.Height; y++)
bmp.SetPixel(x, y, alpha);
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(bmp);
g.InterpolationMode = InterpolationMode.HighQualityBicubic;
g.SmoothingMode = SmoothingMode.HighQuality;
Font labelFont = new Font("Cascadia Mono SemiBold", 23/*22*/, FontStyle.Regular, GraphicsUnit.Millimeter);
Brush brush = new SolidBrush(Color.White);
g.DrawString("Some text", labelFont, brush, 200, 200);
23 Millimeters-Units font:
22 Millimeters-Units font:
I tried to use TextRenderer, but this draws text without transparent background.
The code presented here has multiple problems:
The initial loop is counter-productive for multiple reasons:
Tries to fill a Bitmap with a transparent color, but this is already the non-color associated with a newly created Bitmap (Color.FromArb(0, 0, 0, 0))
Uses the SetPixel() method, the slowest possible tool for the task
If needed, a Bitmap can be filled with a Color using the Graphics.Clear() method, which calls a native GDI+ function to perform the task
Setting an InterpolationMode in this context is not useful, this property selects the algorithm used to scale or rotate images
The SmoothingMode property selects the algorithm used to anti-aliasing lines, curves and the edges of filled areas. It doesn't apply to the rendering of Fonts, so has no effect on the drawn text. It applies to text rendered with a GraphicsPath, since the text is converted to curves
None of the disposable objects (Graphics, Font, Brush) is either disposed explicitly or declared with using statements (which is pretty bad). It's not clear when the Bitmap is disposed, but could be the duty of the code that uses it
To specify the rendering mode of Fonts, the TextRenderingHint property is used instead. Since it's not specified, the System default smoothing of Font is used, usually ClearType.
About this rendering form, see the notes in:
Drawing a Long String on to a Bitmap results in Drawing Issues
ClearType uses intra-pixel smoothing, designed initially for LCD screens, to blend text with a background; it's especially effective with small Fonts sizes. It doesn't support alpha colors (not in this context, at least).
The device context in which the text is rendered, a GDI+ MemoryBitmap, doesn't use or understand this type of hinting (smoothing), so the pixels that fail to render are filled with an empty color, which notoriously appears as black
A black-ish contour might manifests with different Font sizes (not just the measures reported in the question), when the ClearType hinting fill is less than one pixel
To fix the rendering, remove the clutter, specify a suitable TextRenderingHint mode and declare correctly all disposable objects.
I'm not including the Bitmap, because I don't know how it's used. It must be disposed at some point, of course (very important, it allocates unmanaged resources, the Garbage Collector cannot help you)
var bmp = new Bitmap(2000, 2000);
using (var g = Graphics.FromImage(bmp))
using (var font = new Font("Cascadia Mono SemiBold", 22, FontStyle.Regular, GraphicsUnit.Millimeter))
using (var brush = new SolidBrush(Color.White)) {
g.CompositingQuality = CompositingQuality.HighQuality;
g.TextRenderingHint = TextRenderingHint.AntiAliasGridFit;
g.DrawString("Some text", font, brush, 200, 200);
}
TextRenderingHint.AntiAliasGridFit is appropriate here (see also the linked notes), the characters are drawn using their anti-aliased glyph bitmap and hinting (smoothing)
TextRenderingHint.AntiAlias can also be used in this context (and costs slightly less)
CompositingQuality.HighQuality is not actually used here, there isn't really any composition, since no image is rendered against a background (which may require gamma correction), but also has no cost. You can keep it, in case you decide to draw a bitmap onto the current, at some point; or simply remove it.
About TextRenderer draws text without transparent background
This is not correct. TextRenderer (GDI) can of course render text with a transparent background, it just doesn't support an alpha color (in this context)
As mentioned, we're working with an in-memory GDI+ Device Context
But, if you draw the same text in a different Device Context, e.g., the surface of a Control, then things change.
Also note that TextRenderer cannot be used to render text when printing (for the same reasons previously described).
Test this code, subscribing to the Paint event of a PictureBox, also adding a background Image (without a background image the result doesn't change, it's just more visible)
Graphics.DrawString() is used to render text with a semi-transparent (ARGB) Color
TextFormatFlags flags = TextFormatFlags.Left | TextFormatFlags.Top;
private void someControl_Paint(object sender, PaintEventArgs e)
{
using (var font = new Font("Segoe UI", 22, FontStyle.Regular, GraphicsUnit.Millimeter))
using (var brush = new SolidBrush(Color.White)) {
TextRenderer.DrawText(e.Graphics, "Some text", font,
new Rectangle(new Point(0, 10), pictureBox1.ClientSize), Color.White, Color.Transparent, flags);
e.Graphics.CompositingQuality = CompositingQuality.HighQuality;
e.Graphics.TextRenderingHint = TextRenderingHint.AntiAliasGridFit;
e.Graphics.DrawString("Some text", font, brush, 0, 130);
}
using (Font font1 = new Font("Segoe UI", 8.0f, FontStyle.Regular, GraphicsUnit.Millimeter))
using (Font font2 = new Font("Segoe UI", 5.5f, FontStyle.Regular, GraphicsUnit.Millimeter))
using (var brush = new SolidBrush(Color.FromArgb(100, Color.Black))) {
e.Graphics.DrawString("← TextRenderer", font1, brush, 610, 70);
e.Graphics.DrawString("ForeColor: White, BackColor: Transparent", font2, brush, 610, 110);
e.Graphics.DrawString("← GDI+ Graphics", font1, brush, 610, 190);
e.Graphics.DrawString("ForeColor: White, Hinting: AntiAliasGridFit", font2, brush, 610, 230);
}
}
Resulting in (enlarge it):

Graphis.DrawString always uses the default font

I have a project in which I create an image with rotated text around an invisible circle.
The drawing in itself is working just fine. However, it seems that no matter the font I use, I always get the same result, which is I assume some low quality default font.
Here is the code :
Bitmap objBmpImage = new Bitmap(1000, 1000);
System.Drawing.Text.InstalledFontCollection installedFontCollection = new System.Drawing.Text.InstalledFontCollection();
FontFamily[] fontFamilies = installedFontCollection.Families;
System.Drawing.Font objFont = new System.Drawing.Font(fontFamilies.Where(x => x.Name == "Arial").FirstOrDefault(),10);
Graphics objGraphics = Graphics.FromImage(objBmpImage);
objGraphics.Clear(Color.Transparent);
float angle = (float)360.0 / (float)competences.Count();
objGraphics.TranslateTransform(500, 450);
objGraphics.RotateTransform(-90 - (angle / 3));
int nbComptetence = competences.Count();
int indexCompetence = 0;
foreach (T_Ref_Competence competence in competences)
{
byte r, g, b;
HexToInt(competence.T_Ref_CompetenceNiveau2.T_Ref_CompetenceNiveau1.Couleur, out r, out g, out b);
Brush brush = new System.Drawing.SolidBrush(Color.FromArgb(255,r,g,b));
if (indexCompetence * 2 < nbComptetence)
{
objGraphics.DrawString(competence.Nom, objFont, brush, 255, 0);
objGraphics.RotateTransform(angle);
}
else
{
objGraphics.RotateTransform(180);
objGraphics.RotateTransform(angle/2);
float textSize = objGraphics.MeasureString(competence.Nom, objFont).Width;
objGraphics.DrawString(competence.Nom, objFont, brush, -253 - textSize, 0);
objGraphics.RotateTransform(angle);
objGraphics.RotateTransform(-180);
objGraphics.RotateTransform(-angle / 2);
}
indexCompetence++;
}
I get the font using the installed families like this
System.Drawing.Text.InstalledFontCollection installedFontCollection = new System.Drawing.Text.InstalledFontCollection();
FontFamily[] fontFamilies = installedFontCollection.Families;
System.Drawing.Font objFont = new System.Drawing.Font(fontFamilies.Where(x => x.Name == "Arial").FirstOrDefault(),10);
I tried using other font but the result is always the same. Is there anything I am missing ? If not, what could be the reason ?
Thanks,
EDIT : To answer the question, what is it that I want exactly, consider this :
This image is a screenshot of a web site I am making. The chart in the middle was generated using charts.js, but its limitation force me to draw the text as a background image. It actually takes most of my screen so it can't really get much bigger than this. As you can see, the text font is pretty blurry and I would simply want it to be easier to read. I though the font was the problem, but I don't really know.
I am not really familiar with the whole image drawing part of C#, so if there are is better way to draw my text (which can change depending of many variables), I will gladly try other things.
Option 1: change text rendering
objGraphics.TextRenderingHint = TextRenderingHint.SingleBitPerPixel
Option 2: change the mode of anti aliasing
objGraphics.InterpolationMode=InterpolationMode.NearestNeighbor;
Option 3: change the DPI of the image
You'll get the best result if you scale the input image and then draw the text in higher DPI.
The default DPI for a Bitmap are 96. Probably the JS library exported with that setting.
If you want a smoother rendering of the font, you need to increase the DPI, e.g.
objBmpImage.SetResolution(1200,1200);
If you do so, you probably need to increase the number of pixels your Bitmap has.
If the "ugly" text just fitted the 1000x1000 picture, you now need 1000*1200/96=12500 pixels.
Before the change (using Arial 10 pt):
After the change (still using Arial 10 pt):
Note that the size in centimeters doesn't change. So it will still print well.

C# WPF Need quickly shrink images that contain text

I need to shrink multiple images that contain text. Because of the text they need to be shrunk in such a way as to retain the sharp edges of the text and not smoothed. My first attempt was the following:
RenderOptions.SetBitmapScalingMode(upgradeCard, BitmapScalingMode.HighQuality);
upgradeCard.Height(resizedHeight);
upgradeCard.Width(resizedWidth);
The result was too blurry, the text was hard to read. It was, however, really really fast. I then tried this:
public static class ImageResizer
{
public static Image Resize(Image image, Size size)
{
if (image == null || size.IsEmpty)
return null;
var resizedImage = new Bitmap(size.Width, size.Height, image.PixelFormat);
resizedImage.SetResolution(image.HorizontalResolution, image.VerticalResolution);
using (var graphics = Graphics.FromImage(resizedImage))
{
var location = new Point(0, 0);
graphics.CompositingMode = CompositingMode.SourceCopy;
graphics.CompositingQuality = CompositingQuality.HighQuality;
graphics.InterpolationMode = InterpolationMode.HighQualityBicubic;
graphics.SmoothingMode = SmoothingMode.None;
graphics.DrawImage(image, new Rectangle(location, size),
new Rectangle(location, image.Size), GraphicsUnit.Pixel);
}
return resizedImage;
}
}
This worked really well, almost as good as Photoshop Bicubic Sharper. Unfortunately it was also very slow. Way too slow for what I need.
Is there any other way of doing this that produces the results of the second method but does so fairly quickly?
Without examples of your images it's hard to give reliable advice.
For example, how much contrast is in your images already? By what factor are you reducing them?
You could try nearest neighbour scaling, which can be very fast, and then try blurring the output slightly with a Gaussian filter, or similar. If that's too aliased, you could also try linear scaling with a soft blur.

Bold Font is Rendered Wrong

When I try to render a Chinese string like 试标记好不好 Graphics.DrawString draws it
even if I change the Font Linking to SimSun. On the other hand TextRenderer works but it fails to render readable strings when bold fonts are used. It seems there is no correct way to render bold strings.
The issue is described in greater detail here. Am I doing something wrong or does Windows not support professional looking localizable applications with some bold strings in the UI?
The code to repro the issue is for a Windows Forms application with two PictureBoxes:
const string combined = "测试标记好不好This is a aber long";
private void cFontSize_ValueChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(750, 140);
Font f = new Font("Arial", (float)cFontSize.Value, IsBold ? FontStyle.Bold : FontStyle.Regular);
using (var g = Graphics.FromImage(bmp))
{
g.CompositingMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.CompositingMode.SourceOver;
// Rendering with a Background Color solves the issue but
// this would produce boxes of white or black color in the displayed image which looks even worse
TextRenderer.DrawText(g, combined, f, new Point(0, 0), FontColor);
}
cPictureBox.Image = bmp;
Bitmap bmp2 = new Bitmap(750, 140);
using (var g = Graphics.FromImage(bmp2))
{
g.CompositingMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.CompositingMode.SourceOver;
g.DrawString(combined, f, FontBrush, 0, 0);
}
cPicture2.Image = bmp2;
}
Update 1:
When I add as Font Link Setting to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontLink\SystemLink
Arial Bold
SIMSUNB.TTC,SimSun Bold
MSGOTHIC.TTC,MS UI Gothic
then Graphics.DrawString looks ok now althogh TextRender now gets problems. After restarting the application now both outputs look font wise ok although TextRenderer still has the problem that bold fonts become unreadable due to anti aliasing with black. I will restart the machine to check out any caching effects.

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