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Use both RGB and HSB color schemas in your .NET application using HSBColor class

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17 Aug 20051 min read 96.3K   1.7K   26   13
This class helps to convert RGB colors to HSB and back.

Introduction

.NET Framework provides implementation of the Color class and several satellite classes like KnownColor and SystemColors. But all of them are based on ARGB schema. And this is logical, since Windows itself is based on it. But in many cases ARGB is not very useful. For example, you want to use a color that is slightly brighter than a specific system color. For this kind of manipulation you need a different color coding, like HSB (Hue-Saturation-Brightness).

System.Color class provides us these values, but unfortunately it can’t be recreated using them. The purpose of the class I’m going to present in this article is to provide an ability to convert from RGB to HSB and back.

Here is the signature of the class:

C#
using System;

namespace TTRider.UI
{
    public struct HSBColor
    {
        public HSBColor(System.Drawing.Color color);
        
        public HSBColor(float h, float s, float b);
        
        public HSBColor(int a, float h, float s, float b);
        
        public int A { get; }
        
        public float H { get; }
        
        public float S { get; }
        
        public float B { get; }
        
        public System.Drawing.Color Color { get; }
        
        
        public static HSBColor FromColor(System.Drawing.Color color);
        
        public static System.Drawing.Color FromHSB(HSBColor hsbColor);
        
        public static System.Drawing.Color ShiftBrighness(
                       System.Drawing.Color c, float brightnessDelta);
        
        public static System.Drawing.Color ShiftHue(
                              System.Drawing.Color c, float hueDelta);
        
        public static System.Drawing.Color ShiftSaturation(
                       System.Drawing.Color c, float saturationDelta);
    }
}

As you can see, you can create an instance of this struct using System.Color class or just use the Hue, Saturation and Brightness values.

Be aware! You can't use these values from the Color class. Looks like .NET uses different conversion formulas. The valid range of each component is 0:255. Looks like System.Color uses the range from 0:1 for Brightness and Saturation. There are several helpful static members like ShiftHue, ShiftSaturation and ShiftBrightness to manipulate your System.Color class.

You can look into the implementation of this class in the source files. It is straightforward.

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

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Written By
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Comments and Discussions

 
Generalinteresting Pin
Ashley van Gerven17-Aug-05 14:30
Ashley van Gerven17-Aug-05 14:30 
GeneralRe: interesting Pin
TTRider17-Aug-05 14:38
TTRider17-Aug-05 14:38 
GeneralRe: interesting Pin
sabrown10025-Oct-07 13:18
sabrown10025-Oct-07 13:18 

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