How to: GDI+ PictureBox Stored to Clipboard

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I have been searching here on CP for some articles and I have not found anything that has helped me. If anyone can point me in the proper direction I would greatly appreciate it.

This app that I have created uses GDI+ to draw primitive shapes on a picturebox. This works rather well. My main concern now is how do I now take that GDI+ image and save it to a clipboard? Below is a mock-up of my app.

VB

Private m_Graphics As Graphics

Private Sub Picture1_Paint(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs) Handles Picture1.Paint
      m_Graphics = e.Graphics
      m_Graphics.Clear(Picture1.BackColor)

      Draw_Primitive_Shapes_On_Screen() ' This sub routine uses m_Graphics to draw lines, circles, etc.

 End Sub

Private Sub cmdCopyToClipboard_Click(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles cmdCopyToClipboard.Click
      My.Computer.Clipboard.Clear()
      Clipboard.SetImage(Picture1.Image) ' Returns Nothing
End Sub

In this mock-up in my app the Picture1.Image returns Nothing. I was always under the impression that this would give me what I have done to the PictureBox using GDI+. I have tried searching around, but I don't know what I should be focusing on. GDI+ to Image? Or PictureBox to Image?

Does this make sense? If you need any additional info just let me know.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Posted 26-Jul-12 5:54am

Clark Kent123

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Dave Kreskowiak · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-26T06:55:00

Solution 1

You're not painting an image to a Bitmap object. You're painting the image to the screen inside the bounds of the PictureBox control.

The Graphics class has a method, FromImage, which will return a Graphics object that can be used to draw to the Bitmap instance you create.

Dim myImage As New Bitmap(xDimension, yDimension)
Dim m_graphics As Graphics = Graphics.FromImage

Posted 26-Jul-12 6:55am

Dave Kreskowiak

Comments

Clark Kent123 26-Jul-12 15:06pm

Thanks Dave for that. I am currently running some experiments so I get a grasp of this.

Clark Kent123 26-Jul-12 16:05pm

Grr... I thought it was just me, but it seems a bunch of people who have used the GDI+ bitmap solution that you have suggested are receiving the problem that I am now getting "Parameter is not valid." This is when you call any GDI+ function after you initialize it using the FromImage using a bitmap. Hmmm, not sure what to do at this point. Back to the drawing board (pun not intended :) ).

Your advice works in theory so I will give it an accept solution, but does not get me the what I want. I appreciate the help Dave.

Dave Kreskowiak 26-Jul-12 16:20pm

"Parameter not valid"?? On what code? How big in the Bitmap you're creating?
What does the drawing code look like? How about the code this is puttin ght eBitmap on the clipboard?

Clark Kent123 26-Jul-12 16:28pm

Posted is the code that I am testing out.

Dim bmpPictureBox As New Bitmap(Me.Picture1.Width, Me.Picture1.Height)
Dim imgToBeCopied As Image
imgToBeCopied = bmpPictureBox
m_Graphics.FromImage(imgToBeCopied)
'Any function called from m_Graphics receives the "Parameter not valid."
'For instance this does not work m_Graphics.Clear(Color.White)
Clipboard.SetImage(imgToBeCopied)

The dimensions of my PictureBox that I want the Bitmap to use is: 840x 400. Hopefully that is not too large. Maybe I can make it smaller and see what happens.

Dave Kreskowiak 26-Jul-12 16:50pm

What's with the Image garbage?? You don't need it.

Dim newBitmap As New Bitmap(...,...)
Dim g As Graphics = Graphics.FromImage(newBitmap)
g.Clear(Color.Black)
Clipboard.SetImage(newImage)

BTW, this is not copying anything from the picturebox. With the code that you posted above, the drawing that you have is actually blank anyway. There's nothing to copy reguardless of what you see on the screen.

Clark Kent123 26-Jul-12 17:04pm

Oh my! It works. I copied and pasted what you put and it works. What was I doing wrong? Maybe the Image Object was making things unstable. This whole time I was thinking that you had to give it a Image Object. Never tried the bitmap by itself. Well... thanks.

enhzflep · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-26T10:38:00

Okay, here you go. I can't explain the code, since I'm not familiar with .NET and have just cobbled this together using the ~~ode~~ code copied from here: How to: Create a Bitmap at Run Time[^]

I have a form, with one button and one PictureBox. It's called PictureBox1a

VB

Public Class Form1

    Private pictureBox1 As New PictureBox()
    Dim flag As New Bitmap(200, 100)

    Public Sub CreateBitmapAtRuntime()
        PictureBox1a.Size = New Size(210, 110)
        Me.Controls.Add(PictureBox1a)


        Dim flagGraphics As Graphics = Graphics.FromImage(flag)
        Dim red As Integer = 0
        Dim white As Integer = 11
        While white <= 100
            flagGraphics.FillRectangle(Brushes.Blue, 0, red, 200, 10)
            flagGraphics.FillRectangle(Brushes.White, 0, white, 200, 10)
            red += 20
            white += 20
        End While
        PictureBox1a.Image = flag

    End Sub

    Private Sub copyBtn_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles copyBtn.Click
        CreateBitmapAtRuntime()
        Clipboard.SetImage(flag)
    End Sub
End Class

Hitting Ctrl-Shift-V(paste as new image) in Gimp gives me the freshly drawn image.