Load image from resources area of project in C#

Question

I have an image in my project stored at Resources/myimage.jpg. How can I dynamically load this image into Bitmap object?

Answer 1

Are you using Windows Forms? If you've added the image using the Properties/Resources UI, you get access to the image from generated code, so you can simply do this:

var bmp = new Bitmap(WindowsFormsApplication1.Properties.Resources.myimage);

Answer 2

You can get a reference to the image the following way:

Image myImage = Resources.myImage;

If you want to make a copy of the image, you'll need to do the following:

Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(Resources.myImage);

Don't forget to dispose of bmp when you're done with it. If you don't know the name of the resource image at compile-time, you can use a resource manager:

ResourceManager rm = Resources.ResourceManager;
Bitmap myImage = (Bitmap)rm.GetObject("myImage");

The benefit of the ResourceManager is that you can use it where Resources.myImage would normally be out of scope, or where you want to dynamically access resources. Additionally, this works for sounds, config files, etc.

Answer 3

You need to load it from resource stream.

Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(
  System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().
    GetManifestResourceStream("MyProject.Resources.myimage.png"));

If you want to know all resource names in your assembly, go with:

string[] all = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().
  GetManifestResourceNames();

foreach (string one in all) {
    MessageBox.Show(one);
}

Answer 4

Way easier than most all of the proposed answers

tslMode.Image = global::ProjectName.Properties.Resources.ImageName;

Answer 5

The best thing is to add them as Image Resources in the Resources settings in the Project. Then you can get the image directly by doing Resources.myimage. This will get the image via a generated C# property.

If you just set the image as Embedded Resource you can get it with:

string name = "Resources.myimage.jpg"
string namespaceName = "MyCompany.MyNamespace";
string resource = namespaceName + "." + name;
Type type = typeof(MyCompany.MyNamespace.MyTypeFromSameAssemblyAsResource);
Bitmap image = new Bitmap(type.Assembly.GetManifestResourceStream(resource));

Where MyTypeFromSameAssemblyAsResource is any type that you have in your assembly.

Answer 6

Code I use in several of my projects... It assumes that you store images in resource only as bitmaps not icons

    public static Bitmap GetImageByName(string imageName)
    {
        System.Reflection.Assembly asm = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
        string resourceName = asm.GetName().Name + ".Properties.Resources";
        var rm = new System.Resources.ResourceManager(resourceName, asm);
        return (Bitmap)rm.GetObject(imageName);

    }

Answer 7

Use below one. I have tested this with Windows form's Grid view cell.

Object rm = Properties.Resources.ResourceManager.GetObject("Resource_Image");
Bitmap myImage = (Bitmap)rm;
Image image = myImage;

Name of "Resource_Image", you can find from the project.

Under the project's name, you can find Properties. Expand it. There you can see Resources.resx file. Open it. Apply your file name as "Resource_Image".

Answer 8

JDS's answer worked best. C# example loading image:

• Include the image as Resource (Project tree->Resources, right click to add the desirable file ImageName.png)
• Embedded Resource (Project tree->Resources->ImageName.png, right click select properties)
• .png file format (.bmp .jpg should also be OK)

pictureBox1.Image = ProjectName.Properties.Resources.ImageName;

Note the followings:

• The resource image file is "ImageName.png", file extension should be omitted.
• ProjectName may perhaps be more adequately understood as "Assembly name", which is to be the respective text entry on the Project->Properties page.

The example code line is run successfully using VisualStudio 2015 Community.

Answer 9

I suggest:

System.Reflection.Assembly thisExe;
thisExe = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
System.IO.Stream file = 
    thisExe.GetManifestResourceStream("AssemblyName.ImageFile.jpg");
Image yourImage = Image.FromStream(file);

From msdn: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa287676(v=vs.71).aspx

Using Image.FromStream is better because you don't need to know the format of the image (bmp, png, ...).

Answer 10

You can also save the bmp in a var like this:

var bmp = Resources.ImageName;

hope it helps!

Answer 11

In my case -- I was using Icons in my resource, but I needed to add them dynamically as Images to some ToolStripMenuItem(s). So in the method that I created (which is where the code snippet below comes from), I had to convert the icon resources to bitmaps before I could return them for addition to my MenuItem.

string imageName = myImageNameStr;
imageName = imageName.Replace(" ", "_");
Icon myIcon = (Icon)Resources.ResourceManager.GetObject(imageName);
return myIcon.ToBitmap();

Something else to be aware of, if your image/icon has spaces (" ") in its name when you add them to your resource, VS will automatically replace those spaces with "_"(s). Because, spaces are not a valid character when naming your resource. Which is why I'm using the Replace() method in my referenced code. You can likely just ignore that line.

Answer 12

With and ImageBox named "ImagePreview FormStrings.MyImageNames contains a regular get/set string cast method, which are linked to a scrollbox type list. The images have the same names as the linked names on the list, except for the .bmp endings. All bitmaps are dragged into the resources.resx

Object rm = Properties.Resources.ResourceManager.GetObject(FormStrings.MyImageNames);
Bitmap myImage = (Bitmap)rm;
ImagePreview.Image = myImage;

Answer 13

Strangely enough, from poking in the designer I find what seems to be a much simpler approach:

The image seems to be available from .Properties.Resources.

I'm simply using an image as all I'm interested in is pasting it into a control with an image on it.

(Net 4.0, VS2010.)

Answer 14

I looked at the designer code from one of my projects and noticed it used this notation

myButton.Image = global::MyProjectName.Properties.Resources.max;

where max is the name of the resource I uploaded into the project.

Answer 15

Or you could use this line when dealing with WPF or Silverlight, especially where you have the source string already in the XAML markup:

(ImageSource)new ImageSourceConverter().ConvertFromString(ImagePath);

Where the ImagePath is something like:

string ImagePath  = "/ProjectName;component/Resource/ImageName.png";

Answer 16

This is how I manage to create an ImageList from a Resource (.rc) file of a windows forms application:

ImageList imgList = new ImageList();

        var resourceSet = DataBaseIcons.ResourceManager.GetResourceSet(CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("en-EN"), true, true);

        foreach (var r in resourceSet)
        {
            Logger.LogDebug($"Resource Type {((DictionaryEntry)r).Key.ToString()} is of {((DictionaryEntry)r).Value.GetType()}");
            
            if (((DictionaryEntry)r).Value is Bitmap)
            {
                imgList.Images.Add(((Bitmap)(((DictionaryEntry)r).Value)));
            }
            else
            {
                Logger.LogWarning($"Resource Type {((DictionaryEntry)r).Key.ToString()} is of type {((DictionaryEntry)r).Value.GetType()}");
            }
        }

Answer 17

this.toolStrip1 = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip();
this.toolStrip1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(0, 0);
this.toolStrip1.Name = "toolStrip1";
this.toolStrip1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(444, 25);
this.toolStrip1.TabIndex = 0;
this.toolStrip1.Text = "toolStrip1";
object O = global::WindowsFormsApplication1.Properties.Resources.ResourceManager.GetObject("best_robust_ghost");

ToolStripButton btn = new ToolStripButton("m1");
btn.DisplayStyle = ToolStripItemDisplayStyle.Image;
btn.Image = (Image)O;
this.toolStrip1.Items.Add(btn);