Question

I wrote a small application to use as a sandbox for testing ideas that will end up in a production product. The idea is simple; use a TrackBar to change the overall brightness of an image. Because this process takes a fair amount of time, I need to do it in another thread (unless you have a better way). I cannot use the ColorMatrix class because it allows color component values to overflow and I cannot figure out how to clamp them at 255. Anyway, here is the problem:

When I move the TrackBar slowly, everything works great. If I run this on the GUI thread, everything works great (there is too much lag). When I move the TrackBar quickly, the image becomes distorted. Horizontal bands appear across it, as if the image was processed using different scale factors.

I don’t know how this could be as I am drawing into a display bitmap using a base bitmap to get the color values, and I think that I am blocking the operation from beginning again until it completes, but I have very little experience with threading. I’m stuck at this point, so any help you guys could give would be much appreciated. The project is below (had to use filefront as it is too large for a forum attachment).

Here is a link to the project, the entire program can be read below.
http://files.filefront.com/13453973

public partial class Form1 : Form {            public Form1( )     {         InitializeComponent( );         testPBox1.Image = Properties.Resources.test;         trackBar1.Value = 100;         trackBar1.ValueChanged += trackBar1_ValueChanged;     }           void trackBar1_ValueChanged( object sender, EventArgs e )     {         testPBox1.IntensityScale = (float) trackBar1.Value / 100;     } }  class TestPBox : Control {     private const int MIN_SAT_WARNING = 240;             private Bitmap m_srcBitmap;     private Bitmap m_dispBitmap;     private float m_scale;             BackgroundWorker worker;      public TestPBox( )     {         this.DoubleBuffered = true;                                 worker = new BackgroundWorker( );         worker.DoWork += new DoWorkEventHandler( worker_DoWork );         IntensityScale = 1.0f;     }             public Bitmap Image     {         get         {             return m_dispBitmap;         }         set         {             if ( value != null )             {                 m_srcBitmap = value;                 m_dispBitmap = (Bitmap) value.Clone( );                 Invalidate( );                 OnImageChanged( EventArgs.Empty );             }         }     }      [DefaultValue( 1.0f )]     public float IntensityScale     {         get         {             return m_scale;         }         set         {             if ( value == 0.0 || m_scale == value )             {                 return;             }              m_scale = value;             if ( !this.DesignMode && StartImageProcThread( ) )             {                 OnIntensityscaleChanged( EventArgs.Empty );             }                         }     }      private bool StartImageProcThread( )     {                                 if ( !worker.IsBusy )         {                                  worker.RunWorkerAsync( );             return true;         }          return false;     }      private void worker_DoWork( object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e )     {         ChangeIntensity( );     }      private unsafe void ChangeIntensity( )     {         if ( Image != null )         {                             BitmapData srcData = m_srcBitmap.LockBits                     ( new Rectangle( new Point( 0, 0 ), m_srcBitmap.Size ), ImageLockMode.ReadWrite, PixelFormat.Format32bppRgb );             BitmapData dspData = m_dispBitmap.LockBits                     ( new Rectangle( new Point( 0, 0 ), m_dispBitmap.Size ), ImageLockMode.ReadWrite, PixelFormat.Format32bppRgb );             byte* pSrc = (byte*) srcData.Scan0;             byte* pDsp = (byte*) dspData.Scan0;              for ( int y = 0; y < m_dispBitmap.Height; ++y )             {                 for ( int x = 0; x < m_dispBitmap.Width; ++x )                 {                     // we are dealing with a monochrome image, so r = g = b.                     // We only need to get one value to use for all r, g, and b.                     byte b = (byte) CompMinMax( 0, 255, (int) ( pSrc[0] * m_scale ) );                     Color c = ( b > MIN_SAT_WARNING ) ? Color.FromArgb( b, Color.Red ) : Color.FromArgb( 255, b, b, b );                      pDsp[3] = (byte) c.A;                     pDsp[2] = (byte) c.R;                     pDsp[1] = (byte) c.G;                     pDsp[0] = (byte) c.B;                      pSrc += 4;                     pDsp += 4;                 }             }              m_srcBitmap.UnlockBits( srcData );             m_dispBitmap.UnlockBits( dspData );             this.Invalidate( );                    }     }      private int CompMinMax( int min, int max, int value )     {         if ( value > max ) return max;         if ( value < min ) return min;         return value;     }      protected override void OnPaint( PaintEventArgs e )     {         if ( Image != null )         {                            Graphics g = e.Graphics;             Rectangle drawingRect = PaintUtils.CenterInRect( ClientRectangle, PaintUtils.ScaleRect( ClientRectangle, Image.Size ).Size );             g.DrawImage( Image, drawingRect, 0, 0, Image.Width, Image.Height, GraphicsUnit.Pixel );                  }          base.OnPaint( e );     } 

Answer 1

It looks to me like you can change the value of m_scale in the middle of a ChangeIntensity being run.

    // ...     m_scale = value;      if ( !this.DesignMode && StartImageProcThread( ) )     {         OnIntensityscaleChanged( EventArgs.Empty );     }        // ...     private bool StartImageProcThread( )     {                                 if ( !worker.IsBusy )         {                                  worker.RunWorkerAsync( );             return true;         }          return false;     } 

If your worker is in the middle of processing, the value that it is using to scale gets changed, and only applies to the pixels that still have to be processed.