Serialize a System.Windows.Media.ImageSource object

Question

I am creating a chat application very basic. I establish the chat with a tcp connection. I often send serialized object through the network stream because it is simplier to program that way. anyways if I have a class person{ public string name{get;set;} } then it will be eassy to serialize that class. when I include a public ImageSource Img {get;set;} I am not able to serialize that class person any more.

the way I serialize is as:

Person p = new Person();
p.name = \\some name
p.Img = \\ some image

System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer x = new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(p.GetType());

x.Serialize(connection.stream, p);//here is when the problem comes. I am not able to serialize it if I include an Img

Image to xml serialization is bit....strange – Tomas Voracek Aug 31 '11 at 19:13 — Tomas Voracek, Aug 31 '11 at 19:13
I don't mind using a different kind of serialization... – Tono Nam Aug 31 '11 at 19:19 — Tono Nam, Aug 31 '11 at 19:19

Thomas Levesque · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-01T10:08:50.743

9

You can't serialize an image to XML, but you can save it to a MemoryStream and encode the binary data to base64.

string ImageToBase64(BitmapSource bitmap)
{
    var encoder = new PngBitmapEncoder();
    var frame = BitmapFrame.Create(bitmap);
    encoder.Frames.Add(frame);
    using(var stream = new MemoryStream())
    {
        encoder.Save(stream);
        return Convert.ToBase64String(stream.ToArray());
    }
}

BitmapSource Base64ToImage(string base64)
{
    byte[] bytes = Convert.FromBase64String(base64);
    using(var stream = new MemoryStream(bytes))
    {
        return BitmapFrame.Create(stream);
    }
}

Note that base64 is not very efficient in terms of space... If possible, it would be better to transmit the image in binary form, rather than in XML.

edited Sep 01 '11 at 10:08

answered Aug 31 '11 at 19:35

Thomas Levesque

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and once I have the image as a string how do I convert it back to an image? – Tono Nam Sep 01 '11 at 01:20
3

There seems to be a problem with the `Base64ToImage` method - the stream gets disposed before `BitmapFrame` actually accesses it. I've described the fix in [this answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/13424285/197913). – Damir Arh Nov 16 '12 at 20:59
For deserializing, instead of BitmapFrame I ended up using BitmapImage (https://stackoverflow.com/a/1685504/316760). The former returned the first image on subsequent calls (so, same image throughout my UI). I'm sure it was user error on my part. – Vimes May 15 '18 at 21:09

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 31 '11 at 19:19

your approach is correct but does not work anymore as soon as the class Person contains any non serializable object like in your case the ImageSource.

If I had to solve it staying close to your solution, I would store the byte[] of the image and parse it back after deserialization to reconstruct the ImageSource.

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

1

You can use BinaryFormatter or available encoders like http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.media.imaging.jpegbitmapencoder.aspx from System.Windows.Media.Imaging Namespace. Also see WPF BitmapImage Serialization/Deserialization . If you want to use string (xml) then i think the Base64 is the only way.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

Community

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answered Aug 31 '11 at 19:27

Tomas Voracek

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Serialize a System.Windows.Media.ImageSource object

3 Answers3

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