Question

I have searched and understand how to save an image in WPF by using BmpBitmapEncoder. My program has a MVVM view that I want to save as an image. Is it possible to set it as BitmapFrame so I can encode it? If so, is there an online tutorial?

Listed below is the view I want to save.

<Grid>
    <view:OverallView Grid.Row="1"
        Visibility="{Binding IsOverallVisible,Converter={StaticResource B2VConv}}" />
</Grid>

OverallView is a user control.

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If setting a view as a BitmapFrame is not possible, what wpf elements can be set as a BitmapSource/Frame?

Answer 1

You can return it as RenderTargetBitmap:

public static RenderTargetBitmap GetImage(OverallView view)
{
    Size size = new Size(view.ActualWidth, view.ActualHeight);
    if (size.IsEmpty)
        return null;

    RenderTargetBitmap result = new RenderTargetBitmap((int)size.Width, (int)size.Height, 96, 96, PixelFormats.Pbgra32);

    DrawingVisual drawingvisual = new DrawingVisual();
    using (DrawingContext context = drawingvisual.RenderOpen())
    {
        context.DrawRectangle(new VisualBrush(view), null, new Rect(new Point(), size));
        context.Close();
    }

    result.Render(drawingvisual);
    return result;
}

After that you can use the PngBitmapEncoder to save it as PNG and save it to stream, e.g.:

public static void SaveAsPng(RenderTargetBitmap src, Stream outputStream)
{
    PngBitmapEncoder encoder = new PngBitmapEncoder();
    encoder.Frames.Add(BitmapFrame.Create(src));

    encoder.Save(outputStream);   
}

FIX: bitmap => result