I am making an album application with windows forms and I have a problem that I can't solve. First of all I have a form where I create a TableLayoutPanel. After that I create a method where I generate the same amount of picture boxes as the amount of the images in the directory which I have opened. The problem occurs when I am trying to dispose the image which I load in the picturebox because I need to free its memory. Here is the code of the method:
public void createPictureBoxes()
{
Image loadedImage;
int imageCounter = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < rowCounter; i++)
for(int p = 0; p < imagesTable.ColumnCount; p++)
{
PictureBox pb = new PictureBox();
pb.SizeMode = PictureBoxSizeMode.Zoom;
pb.Width = imagesTable.GetColumnWidths()[p];
pb.Height = imagesTable.GetRowHeights()[i];
pb.Click += new EventHandler(enlargeThumbnail);
try
{
loadedImage = Image.FromFile(images[imageCounter++]);
pb.Image = loadedImage;
loadedImage.Dispose();
imagesTable.Controls.Add(pb);
loadedImage.Dispose();
}
catch (IndexOutOfRangeException)
{
break;
}
}
}
The program throws an ArgumentException on method Show() of the form telling me that the argument is not valid. Without the dispose method all works fine but if i try to load a large amount of images the program uses gigabytes of memory. I suppose that it is not right to dispose the image memory that way, but I can't come out with another idea. If someone could help I would be very grateful
Two problems: you're disposing twice, and further you won't be able to dispose of an image control so long as a parent control container is expected to use it. When the form is disposed then it will cause all controls to be disposed that are part of its container.
So, much less than trying to dispose twice, don't dispose at all (here, that is)!
You can't dispose the image while you are displaying it. If you do, the form can't display it.
The PictureBox doesn't make a copy of the Image instance when you assign it to the Image property. It keeps the instance, so you can't dispose it until you have removed the image from the picture box.
Related
I am doing an image processing project using Windows Forms (c#). You can see the design of my application below.
What does this app do : take the original image, create a copy and modify the copy.
My app is working well but, if I process the same original image another time without closing the app, I get an error due to (I think) the display of the modified image. I think that the display on the bottom right corner uses the resources of the image and, when I try to modify it again, the system considers that the image is already used by another program so it can't be modified.
So my question is : "How can I stop using the modified image if the user clicks on PROCESS again ?"
I tried to use the .Dispose() method but it didn't work.
Code of the c# function linked to the PROCESS button :
private async void button8_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// start the waiting animation
progressBar1.Visible = true;
progressBar1.Style = ProgressBarStyle.Marquee;
if (csI != csP)
{
MessageBox.Show("The selected profil does not match the selected image. Colorspaces are different.", "WARNING",
MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error);
}
else
{
pictureBox2.Image = null;
if (checkBox2.Checked == false)
{
rendered = false;
button8.Enabled = false;
await Task.Run(() => wrapper.DominantColors(trackBar1.Value, rendered));
//wrapper.DominantColors(trackBar1.Value, rendered);
}
else
{
rendering = comboBox1.Text;
string outputImage = wrapper.Link(rendering, bpc);
rendered = true;
button8.Enabled = false;
await Task.Run(() => wrapper.DominantColors(trackBar1.Value, rendered));
//wrapper.DominantColors(trackBar1.Value, rendered);
}
// re-enable things
button8.Enabled = true;
progressBar1.Visible = false;
MessageBox.Show("processing done");
Bitmap bit = new Bitmap(imgDstPath);
float WidthImg = bit.Width;
float HeightImg = bit.Height;
float alpha = WidthImg / pictureBox2.Width;
float beta = HeightImg / pictureBox2.Height;
alpha = Math.Max(alpha, beta);
float newWidthf = WidthImg / alpha;
float newHeightf = HeightImg / alpha;
int newHeight = (int)newHeightf;
int newWidth = (int)newWidthf;
pictureBox2.ClientSize = new Size(newWidth, newHeight);
pictureBox2.Image = bit;
pictureBox2.SizeMode = PictureBoxSizeMode.StretchImage;
}
}
If possible, I'd like to clear the use of the resources when I click on the process button.
Thank you in advance for your help
The basic rule is that all objects you create that implements IDisposable need to be disposed. When writing winforms apps all controls added to a forms are disposed when the form is disposed. But whenever you change things you might need to handle disposal yourself.
For example:
pictureBox2.Image = bit;
If pictureBox2.Image is already set to something you need to ensure that it is disposed.
var oldImage = pictureBox2.Image;
pictureBox2.Image = bit;
oldImage.Dispose();
I'm not sure this is the actual problem you are having, your example code is insufficient to make that determination. To discover this you need to debug your program! Start by examining your exceptions, does it fail when opening a file or some other resource? Where was that resource created? where is it disposed? Perhaps even use a memory debugger to produce a list of all objects that are alive to see if there are any suspicious objects kept around. Will disposal correctly occur if any arbitrary code throws an exception?
It is sometimes useful to check the identity of objects in the debugger, to see if it has been switched out, or see what object your breakpoint was triggered in. You can rightclick an object in the watch panel in visual studio and select "Make ObjectId", this will associate a number with the object that appears at the end of the value.
If anyone in the future wants to know the solution I found, here it is :
At the beginning of the PROCESS function I added those simple lines :
if (pictureBox2.Image != null)
{
pictureBox2.Image.Dispose();
pictureBox2.Image = null;}
I have a winforms application where user can select an image from a list of available images and the corresponding image is shown in a PictureBox. The images can be very huge with a minimum of 10MB. This obviously makes the rest of the UI unresponsive while the image loads. So I thought of loading the image on a separate thread using the following code:
private void LoadImage()
{
// loadViewerThread is a Thread object
if (loadViewerThread != null && loadViewerThread.IsAlive)
{
loadViewerThread.Abort(); // Aborting the previous thread if the user has selected another image
}
loadViewerThread = new Thread(SetViewerImage);
loadViewerThread.Start();
}
The SetViewerImage function is as below:
private void SetViewerImage()
{
if (pictureBox1.Image != null)
pictureBox1.Image.Dispose();
pictureBox1.Image = new Bitmap(/*Some stream*/);
}
After this the images load smoothly and the UI can also be accessed.
But if the user moves very fast between the set of images then a big red X mark comes up. This happens because I have that call to Dispose in SetViewerImage.
I have assigned an ErrorImage to the PictureBox but that ErrorImage is never shown in this case.
Questions:
Is there anything wrong with my thread implementation? Why does the
Image gets disposed?
Is there any way that I can display a different ErrorImage and not
the red X?
You need to manipulate controls in the UI thread. You can do this by using Control.Invoke() from a different thread.
The big bottleneck is creating the image from the stream, so you should be able to reorganize your method like this to keep the UI thread freed up:
private void SetViewerImage()
{
Bitmap image = new Bitmap(/* Some stream*/);
pictureBox1.Invoke(new Action(() =>
{
if (pictureBox1.Image != null)
{
pictureBox1.Image.Dispose();
pictureBox1.Image = null; // This might help? Only add if it does.
}
pictureBox1.Image = image;
}));
}
I have an issue that I think has not been covered in the multitude of other WPF image loading issues. I am scanning in several images and passing them to a "Preview Page". The preview page takes the image thumbnails and displays what a printout would look like via a generated bitmap.
The weird thing to me is, it will work fine if I run the program the first time. Upon reaching the end of the process and hitting "start over", the preview will return blank. I am creating the BitmapImage in a method that saves the bitmap as a random file name so I do not believe theres a lock on the file the second time around. Also, if I go to look at the temporary file created through explorer, it is drawn correctly so I know the appropriate data is getting to it.
Finally, when I navigate away from this page, I am clearing necessary data. I'm really perplexed and any help would be appreciated.
//Constructor
public Receipt_Form() {
InitializeComponent();
printData = new List<Object>();
this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(MainWindow_Loaded);
}
void MainWindow_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) {
// populates global variable fileName
var task = System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Factory.StartNew(() => outputToBitmap()); task.ContinueWith(t => setImage(fileName),
System.Threading.Tasks.TaskScheduler.FromCurrentSynchronizationContext());
// I started the image creation in a separate thread because I
// thought it may be blocking the UI thread, but it didn't matter
}
private void setImage(string imageURI) {
BitmapImage image;
using (FileStream stream = File.OpenRead(imageURI)) {
image = new BitmapImage();
image.BeginInit();
image.StreamSource = stream;
image.CacheOption = BitmapCacheOption.OnLoad;
image.EndInit();
}
receiptPreview.Source = image;
//this works the first iteration but not the second, though the temp file is created successfully
}
Found the issue - the Modern UI container was getting cleared when transitioning off the page.
I have an OpenFileDialog and PictureBox in user control. To understand the problem better I'll explain in few words how this user control works. The user can select an image to be opened for the form. The name of this image is saved in a DataBase and the file for the image is copied in a default location. When there is some image saved in the database it is load in the picturebox when the form with the picturebox control is loaded. If the user select another image and want to save the form with the new image I have a method that takes care to delete the old image file from my default location and that is where the problem occurs.
When I have loaded image and try to save new one, sometimes (very rare in fact) I get an error that The resource is being used by another process.. I can paste the exact error if needed. I think that the problem is caused from the picturebox and the way it deals with images.
Here is my code:
if (openFileDialog1.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
{
try
{
if (MyImage != null)
{
MyImage.Dispose();
}
selectedFile = openFileDialog1.FileName;
selectedFileName = openFileDialog1.SafeFileName;
MyImage = new Bitmap(openFileDialog1.FileName);
pictureBox1.Image = (Image)MyImage;
int imageWidth = pictureBox1.Image.Width;
int picBoxWidth = pictureBox1.Width;
if (imageWidth != 0 && picBoxWidth > imageWidth)
{
pictureBox1.Width = imageWidth;
}
else
{
pictureBox1.Width = defaultPicBoxWidth;
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
logger.Error(ex.ToString());
MessageBox.Show("Error loading image!", "Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error);
}
and my delete method:
public void DeleteImage(AppConfig imageInfo, string imageName)
{
string imgPath = imageInfo.ConfigValue.ToString();
try
{
File.Delete(imgPath + "\\" + imageName);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString());
}
}
I thought that :
if (MyImage != null)
{
MyImage.Dispose();
}
will deal with this problem but still sometimes it occurs. And because it's not everytime it's even more critical to deal with it because at some point I may decide that I have solved it but in fact to be just lucky for some time.
MyImage = new Bitmap(openFileDialog1.FileName);
pictureBox1.Image = (Image)MyImage;
Yes, that code puts a lock on the file. The lock is produced by a memory mapped file object that GDI+ creates to efficiently map the pixel data of the file into memory without having to allocate space in the paging file. You will not be able to delete the file as long as the image is displayed in the picture box and not disposed, the lock prevents that. You will have to dispose the image and set the Image property back to null before you can delete the file.
You can prevent the file from getting locked by making an in-memory copy of the image:
using (var temp = new Bitmap(openFileDialog1.FileName)) {
pictureBox1.Image = new Bitmap(temp);
}
It is not as efficient of course, to be avoided if the image is large. And do beware that another process may in fact have a similar lock on the file. Nothing you can do about that.
A major difficulty with things like PictureBox is that because a PictureBox has no way of knowing whether it is the only user of an image, it consequently has no way of knowing whether it should dispose of that image when it no longer needs it.
Consequently, whatever code owns a picture box must also take ownership of the image associated therewith. There are three approaches I could suggest for doing so:
Create a control derived from PictureBox which documents itself as assuming ownership of any image given to it. Such a control should probably replace the image property with a SetImageWithOwnership method (with the semantics that once an image is passed to the PictureOwningBox, the box will be expected to "own" it, and will dispose it either when the box is Disposed or when a different image is given to the box).
Attach event handlers to a PictureBox to handle the scenarios where either the box is destroyed or a different image is assigned to it.
Have any code which would cause the PictureBox to be disposed or have a different image loaded, also dispose the Image that had been assigned to it.
While there may be cases where it would be appropriate to call GC.Collect and let the garbage-collector take care of things, such an approach is generally unsound.
try that:
using(Bitmap MyImage = new Bitmap(openFileDialog1.FileName))
{
pictureBox1.Image = (Image)MyImage;
int imageWidth = pictureBox1.Image.Width;
int picBoxWidth = pictureBox1.Width;
if (imageWidth != 0 && picBoxWidth > imageWidth)
{
pictureBox1.Width = imageWidth;
}
else
{
pictureBox1.Width = defaultPicBoxWidth;
}
}
I've had problems like this before, and one way that I've found to make sure that the resource is released, even after Dispose(), which really only marks the object for removal by the garbage collector, is by using GC.Collect(). I'm sure that there is a cleaner way to handle the resource disposal, but the time that it takes the GC.Collect() to run shouldn't hinder your program.
All, I'm working on what I thought was a fairly simple app. I'm using multiple view controllers with a view - under which there are buttons and a single image view. the buttonpress event triggers the other viewcontroller's view to display. That works perfectly. However, I'm also wanting to animate the transition to simulate a page turn. I use the code below to do that. It works well, however, every time I use this method the memory used increases. The memory used appears to be disconnected from the actual size of the image array. Also, I changed from png to jpeg ( much smaller images ) and it doesn't make a bit of difference. I thought about using .mov but the load time is very noticeable.
Please help. I've tried a ton of different way to force garbage collection. I've dug through the limited texts, and searched this website to no avail.
Here's a sample of the code.
public partial class AppDelegate : UIApplicationDelegate
{
// This method is invoked when the application has loaded its UI and its ready to run
public override bool FinishedLaunching (UIApplication app, NSDictionary options)
{
UIApplication.SharedApplication.SetStatusBarHidden( true, true);
// If you have defined a view, add it here:
// window.AddSubview (navigationController.View);
//window.AddSubview(mainController.View);
window.MakeKeyAndVisible ();
coverOpenbtn.TouchUpInside += HandleCoverOpenbtnTouchUpInside;
backBtn1.TouchUpInside += HandleBackBtn1TouchUpInside;
return true;
}
void HandleBackBtn1TouchUpInside (object sender, EventArgs e)
{
this.navView.RemoveFromSuperview();
List<UIImage> myImages = new List<UIImage>();
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00011.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00010.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00009.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00008.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00007.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00006.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00005.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00004.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00003.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00002.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00001.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00000.jpg"));
//myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00012.jpg"));
var myAnimatedView = new UIImageView(window.Bounds);
myAnimatedView.AnimationImages = myImages.ToArray();
myAnimatedView.AnimationDuration = 1; // Seconds
myAnimatedView.AnimationRepeatCount = 1;
myAnimatedView.StartAnimating();
window.AddSubview(myAnimatedView);
}
void HandleCoverOpenbtnTouchUpInside (object sender, EventArgs e)
{
this.coverView.AddSubview(navView);
List<UIImage> myImages = new List<UIImage>();
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00000.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00001.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00002.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00003.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00004.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00005.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00006.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00007.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00008.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00009.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00010.jpg"));
myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00011.jpg"));
//myImages.Add(UIImage.FromFile("c_1_00012.jpg"));
var myAnimatedView = new UIImageView(window.Bounds);
myAnimatedView.AnimationImages = myImages.ToArray();
myAnimatedView.AnimationDuration = 1; // Seconds
myAnimatedView.AnimationRepeatCount = 1;
opened++;
}
myAnimatedView.StartAnimating();
window.AddSubview(myAnimatedView);
}
Here's a few hints (just by reading the code):
There no difference between JPEG and PNG once the images are loaded in memory. The format only matters when the image is stored, not displayed. Once loaded (and decompressed) they will take a bit over (Width * Height * BitCount) of memory.
Consider caching your images and load them only they are not available. The GC will decide when to collect them (so many copies could exists at the same time). Right now you're loading each image twice when you could do it once (and use separate array for ordering them).
Even if you cache them also be ready to clear them on demand, e.g. if iOS warns you memory is low. Override ReceiveMemoryWarning to clear your list (or better arrays).
Don't call ToArray if you can avoid it (like your sample code). If you know how many images you have them simply create the array with the right size (and cache both array too ;-). It will cut down (a bit) the allocations;
Even consider caching the 'myAnimatedView' UIImageView (if the above did not help enough)
Be helpful to others, try them one-by-one and tell us what help you the most :-)
The images are to "animate" a page turn...is this to navigate through the app?
E.g. you start at the "home" page, press a button then it animates a page turn to the next screen in your app?
I think you would be better off looking at using CoreGraphics to try and achieve this effect, it'll both be a lot more efficient memory wise, and it will probably look a lot better as well. There are a few projects in Objective-C to get you started, such as Tom Brow's excellent Leaves project.
Okay, here is the best solution I found, doesn't crash the hardware, and is generally useful for other tasks.
This is the code that goes in the handler for the button press, each NavImage is a UIImage I built under the same view in interface builder. I just turned the alpha to 0 initially, and light them up one by one...
NSTimer.CreateScheduledTimer(.1,delegate { navImage1.Alpha = 1; NSTimer.CreateScheduledTimer(.1,delegate { navImage2.Alpha = 1;
NSTimer.CreateScheduledTimer(.05,delegate { navImage3.Alpha = 1;
NSTimer.CreateScheduledTimer(.05,delegate { navImage4.Alpha = 1;
NSTimer.CreateScheduledTimer(.05,delegate { navImage5.Alpha = 1;
NSTimer.CreateScheduledTimer(.05,delegate { navImage6.Alpha = 1;
NSTimer.CreateScheduledTimer(.05,delegate { navImage7.Alpha = 1;
NSTimer.CreateScheduledTimer(.05,delegate { navImage8.Alpha = 1;
NSTimer.CreateScheduledTimer(.05,delegate { navImage9.Alpha = 1;
NSTimer.CreateScheduledTimer(.05,delegate { navImage.Alpha = 1; });});});});});});});});});});