Question

Hello stackoverflow community.

I do not want to draw each pictureBoxes image to Panel1 but instead I want to add each pictureBox image(pictureBox1,pictureBox2,pictureBox3) to a Bitmap, then set that Bitmap to Panel1’s background Image.

Is this possible?
thanks

Answer 1

Here’s the method I’ve found to combine multiple images into one bitmap

public static System.Drawing.Bitmap CombineBitmap(Image[] files)
        {
            //read all images into memory
            List<System.Drawing.Bitmap> images = new List<System.Drawing.Bitmap>();
            System.Drawing.Bitmap finalImage = null;

            try
            {
                int width = 0;
                int height = 0;

                foreach (Image image in files)
                {
                    //create a Bitmap from the file and add it to the list
                    System.Drawing.Bitmap bitmap = new System.Drawing.Bitmap(image);

                    //update the size of the final bitmap
                    width += bitmap.Width;
                    height = bitmap.Height > height ? bitmap.Height : height;

                    images.Add(bitmap);
                }

                //create a bitmap to hold the combined image
                finalImage = new System.Drawing.Bitmap(width, height);

                //get a graphics object from the image so we can draw on it
                using (System.Drawing.Graphics g = System.Drawing.Graphics.FromImage(finalImage))
                {
                    //set background color
                    g.Clear(System.Drawing.Color.Black); // Change this to whatever you want the background color to be, you may set this to Color.Transparent as well

                    //go through each image and draw it on the final image
                    int offset = 0;
                    foreach (System.Drawing.Bitmap image in images)
                    {
                        g.DrawImage(image,
                          new System.Drawing.Rectangle(offset, 0, image.Width, image.Height));
                        offset += image.Width;
                    }
                }

                return finalImage;
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                if (finalImage != null)
                    finalImage.Dispose();

                throw ex;
            }
            finally
            {
                //clean up memory
                foreach (System.Drawing.Bitmap image in images)
                {
                    image.Dispose();
                }
            }
        }

You’ll need to create an array of images for this to work, then you could try this

        Image[] Files = new Image[3]; // Create a new array of maximum 3 indices
        Files[0] = pictureBox1.Image;
        Files[1] = pictureBox2.Image;
        Files[2] = pictureBox3.Image;
        panel1.BackgroundImage = CombineBitmap(Files); //Add the combined bitmap to the BackgroundImage

Thanks,

Have a great day and sorry for misunderstanding 🙂