Develop Reference

Why aren't the CenterX and CenterY of my ScaleTransform not working the same for my TextBlock as my lines?

I've got a canvas where, among other things, I have many groups of points that I created by making two lines in a cross along with a TextBlock with the points name. When the user zooms in on this canvas, I want the user to be able to scale up or down the points in order to view them easier.
The problem I'm having is specifically the scaling of the textblock. I need both the two lines as well as the textblock to scale to the CanvasCenter (center of the crosshairs the respective point). The two lines scale perfectly towards the center when I set the transforms CenterX and CenterY to the the center but the textblock scales way off, towards the bottom right of the canvas.
Am I misunderstanding what exactly centerX and centerY are?
public void ScaleDown()
{
ScaleTransform lineTransform = new ScaleTransform();
ScaleTransform textTransform = new ScaleTransform();
scale *= 0.90;
lineTransform.ScaleX = scale;
lineTransform.ScaleY = scale;
lineTransform.CenterX = CanvasCenter[0];
lineTransform.CenterY = CanvasCenter[1];
textTransform.ScaleX *= scale;
textTransform.ScaleY *= scale;
textTransform.CenterX = CanvasCenter[0];
textTransform.CenterY = CanvasCenter[1];
NameText.RenderTransform = textTransform;
Line1.RenderTransform = lineTransform;
Line2.RenderTransform = lineTransform;
}
I have tried scaling to the center and I expected it to move closer to that center, but it moved in a completely different direction.

WPF Path's Geometry Transform performance gets worse with LineGeometries' length increase

I'm currently trying to create a little plot interactive editor, using WPF.
On maximized window the plot dragging with mouse is not responsive enough because of the plot grid.
I got a path for my plot grid lying inside a Canvas control (render transform just shifts it to the bottom of the canvas)
<Path Name="VisualGrid" RenderTransform="{StaticResource PlotTechnicalAdjust}" Style="{DynamicResource ResourceKey=GridStyle}" Panel.ZIndex="1"/>
Here is how grid is created; _curState has actual camera "viewport" metadata
if (_curState.Changes.ScaleStepXChanged)
{
foreach (TextBlock item in _xLabels)
{
DeleteLabel(item);
}
_xLabels.Clear();
double i = _curState.LeftEdgeLine;
_gridGeom.Children[(int)GridGeomIndexes.VerticalLines] = new GeometryGroup { Transform = _verticalLinesShift};
var verticalLines =(GeometryGroup)_gridGeom.Children[(int)GridGeomIndexes.VerticalLines];
while (i <= _curState.RightEdgeLine * (1.001))
{
verticalLines.Children.Add(new LineGeometry(new Point(i * _plotParameters.PixelsPerOneX, 0),
new Point(i * _plotParameters.PixelsPerOneX,
-_wnd.ContainerGeneral.Height)));
_xLabels.Add(CreateLabel(i, Axis.X));
i += _curState.CurrentScaleStepX;
}
_curState.Changes.ScaleStepXChanged = false;
}
if (_curState.Changes.ScaleStepYChanged)
{
foreach (TextBlock item in _yLabels)
{
DeleteLabel(item);
}
_yLabels.Clear();
double i = _curState.BottomEdgeLine;
_gridGeom.Children[(int)GridGeomIndexes.HorizontalLines] = new GeometryGroup { Transform = _horizontalLinesShift};
var horizontalLines = (GeometryGroup)_gridGeom.Children[(int)GridGeomIndexes.HorizontalLines];
while (i <= _curState.TopEdgeLine * (1.001))
{
horizontalLines.Children.Add(new LineGeometry(new Point(0, -i * _plotParameters.PixelsPerOneY),
new Point(_wnd.ContainerGeneral.Width,
-i * _plotParameters.PixelsPerOneY)));
_yLabels.Add(CreateLabel(i, Axis.Y));
i += _curState.CurrentScaleStepY;
}
_curState.Changes.ScaleStepYChanged = false;
}
Where Transforms are composition of TranslateTransform and ScaleTransform (for vertical lines I only use X components and only Y for horizontal lines).
After beeing created those GeometryGroups are only edited if a new line apears into camera or an existing line exits viewable space. Grid is only recreated when axis graduations have to be changed after zooming.
I have a dragging option implemented like this:
private Point _cursorOldPos = new Point();
private void OnDragPlotMouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
if (e.Handled)
return;
Point cursorNewPos = e.GetPosition(ContainerGeneral);
_plotView.TranslateShiftX.X += cursorNewPos.X - _cursorOldPos.X;
_plotView.TranslateShiftY.Y += cursorNewPos.Y - _cursorOldPos.Y;
_cursorOldPos = cursorNewPos;
e.Handled = true;
}
This works perfectly smooth with a small window (1200x400 units) for a large amount of points (like 100+).
But for a large window (fullscreen 1920x1080) it happens pretty jittery even without any data-point controls on canvas.
The strange moment is that lags don't appear when I order my GridGenerator to keep around 100+ lines for small window and drag performance suffers when I got less than 50 lines on maximezed. It makes me think that it might somehow depend not on a number of elements inside a geometry, but on their linear size.
I suppose I should mention that OnSizeChanged I adjust the ContainerGeneral canvas' height and width and simply re-create the grid.
Checked the number of lines stored in runtime to make sure I don't have any extras. Tried using Image with DrawingVisual instead of Path. Nothing helped.
Appearances for clearer understanding

It was all about stroke dashes and WPF's unhealthy desire to count them all while getting hit test bounds for DrawingContext.
The related topic is Why does use of pens with dash patterns cause huge (!) performance degredation in WPF custom 2D drawing?

Dynamically scaling canvas in WPF by setting in- and outpoints

I'm working on plotting program in WPF using the canvas element. What I want to achieve is a scrollbar with draggable endpoints. Example of these kinds of scrollbars are in the After Effects video editing software by Adobe.
Basic functionality of such a scrollbar is that it is able to scroll trough content that is bigger then it's container, but both the left and right endpoint can be dragged to dynamically change the scale of the content.
I have implemented a similar scrollbar in the plotting program; users should be able to drag around the in and outpoint (Rectangles in a canvas), and the plot canvas should respond to this by scaling to the desired range.
Information I need for this:
Width of the total plot (amount of plotpoints)
Width of the container (static, 600px)
Percentage of the in and out points relative to the total width of the scrollbar canvas
Link to current screenshot
With this information I have created a MatrixTransform, using the ScaleAt() method to scale the plot canvas inside the container so that it matches the in and outpoints in the scrollbar below. For this I used the following code. resetTransform gets called FPS times a second to keep up with the incoming data and XMAX and YMAX are updated elsewhere to reflect this.
public void resetTransform(Boolean useSlider = false)
{
//Add transformgroup to plot
double yscale = plot.Height / view.YMAX; //YMAX is maximum plot value received
double xscale = plot.Width / view.XMAX; //XMAX is total ammount of plotted points
Matrix m = new Matrix(1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0);
if (useSlider)
{
double maxVal = zoomBar.ActualWidth - outPoint.Width;
double outP = Canvas.GetLeft(outPoint); //points position relative to the scrollbar
double inP = Canvas.GetLeft(inPoint);
double center = (((outP + inP) / 2) / maxVal) * plot.ActualWidth;
double delta = (outP-inP);
double factor = (maxVal/delta) * xscale;
double mappedinP = (inP / maxVal) * view.XMAX;
double anchorOut = (outP / maxVal) * view.XMAX;
double anchorIn = (inP / maxVal) * view.XMAX;
m.ScaleAt(factor, -yscale,center,0); //scale around the center point,
m.Translate(0, plot.Height); //to compensate the flipped graph, move it back down
}
scale = new ScaleTransform(m.M11, m.M22, 0, 0); //save scale factors in a scaletransform for reference
signals.scaleSignalStrokes(scale); //Scale the plotlines to compensate for canvas scaling
MatrixTransform matrixTrans = new MatrixTransform(m); //Create matrixtransform
plot.RenderTransform = matrixTrans; //Apply to canvas
}
Expectation: Everything should work and the plotted graph would scale nicely when the amount of plotpoints grows over time. Reality: The graph scales when moving the points around, but it is not representative; Moreover, the more plot points are added, the more the whole canvas shifts to the right and the less control I seem to have over the transformation. The algorithm as it is now is probably to wrong approach to get the result I need, but I have spent quite some time thinking how to do this right.
Update
I have uploaded a video to give a clearer picture on the interaction. In the video you can clearly see the canvas shifting to the right.
Screencapture video
How should I scale the canvas (plot) to fit within two boundaries?

So, after some struggling, I found the right algorithm to solve this problem. I will post the adjusted version of the resetTransform function below:
//Reset graph transform
public void resetTransform(Boolean useSlider = false)
{
double yscale = plot.Height / view.YMAX; //YMAX is maximum plot value received
double xscale = plot.Width / view.XMAX; //XMAX is total ammount of plotted points
Matrix m = new Matrix(1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0);
if (useSlider)
{
double maxVal = zoomBar.ActualWidth - outPoint.Width;
double outP = Canvas.GetLeft(outPoint); //points position relative to the scrollbar
double inP = Canvas.GetLeft(inPoint);
double delta = (outP-inP);
double factor = (maxVal/delta) * xscale;
anchorOut = (outP / maxVal) * view.XMAX; //Define anchorpoint coordinates
anchorIn = (inP / maxVal) * view.XMAX;
double center = (anchorOut +anchorIn)/2; //Define centerpoint
m.Translate(-anchorIn, 0); //Move graph to inpoint
m.ScaleAt(factor, -yscale,0,0); //scale around the inpoint, with a factor so that outpoint is plot.Height(=600px) further away
m.Translate(0, plot.Height); //to compensate the flipped graph, move it back down
}
scale = new ScaleTransform(m.M11, m.M22, 0, 0); //save scale factors in a scaletransform for reference
signals.scaleSignalStrokes(scale); //Scale the plotlines to compensate for canvas scaling
MatrixTransform matrixTrans = new MatrixTransform(m); //Create matrixtransform
plot.RenderTransform = matrixTrans; //Apply to canvas
}
So rather than scaling around the centre point, I should first translate the image and then scale around the origin of the canvas with a factor. This means the other side of the canvas is exactly plot.Height pixels away (with some added scaling)
Everything seems to work fine now, but because I am using custom controls (draggable Rectangles in a canvas) I notice these rectangles do not always fire the mousse events.
Since it is out of the scope of this question, I've described the issue further in this post

How can I simulate a hanging cable in WPF?

I have an application that is very "connection-based", i.e. multiple inputs/outputs.
The UI concept of a "cable" is exactly what I'm looking for to make the concept clear to the user. Propellerhead took a similar approach in their Reason software for audio components, illustrated in this YouTube video (fast forward to 2m:50s).
I can make this concept work in GDI by painting a spline from point A to point B, there's got to be a more elegant way to use Paths or something in WPF for this, but where do you start? Is there a good way to simulate the animation of the cable swing when you grab it and shake it?
I'm also open to control libraries (commercial or open source) if this wheel has already been invented for WPF.
Update: Thanks to the links in the answers so far, I'm almost there.
I've created a BezierCurve programmatically, with Point 1 being (0, 0), Point 2 being the bottom "hang" point, and Point 3 being wherever the mouse cursor is. I've created a PointAnimation for Point 2 with an ElasticEase easing function applied to it to give the "Swinging" effect (i.e., bouncing the middle point around a bit).
Only problem is, the animation seems to run a little late. I'm starting the Storyboard each time the mouse moves, is there a better way to do this animation? My solution so far is located here:
Bezier Curve Playground
Code:
private Path _path = null;
private BezierSegment _bs = null;
private PathFigure _pFigure = null;
private Storyboard _sb = null;
private PointAnimation _paPoint2 = null;
ElasticEase _eEase = null;
private void cvCanvas_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
var position = e.GetPosition(cvCanvas);
AdjustPath(position.X, position.Y);
}
// basic idea: when mouse moves, call AdjustPath and draw line from (0,0) to mouse position with a "hang" in the middle
private void AdjustPath(double x, double y)
{
if (_path == null)
{
_path = new Path();
_path.Stroke = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Blue);
_path.StrokeThickness = 2;
cvCanvas.Children.Add(_path);
_bs = new BezierSegment(new Point(0, 0), new Point(0, 0), new Point(0, 0), true);
PathSegmentCollection psCollection = new PathSegmentCollection();
psCollection.Add(_bs);
_pFigure = new PathFigure();
_pFigure.Segments = psCollection;
_pFigure.StartPoint = new Point(0, 0);
PathFigureCollection pfCollection = new PathFigureCollection();
pfCollection.Add(_pFigure);
PathGeometry pathGeometry = new PathGeometry();
pathGeometry.Figures = pfCollection;
_path.Data = pathGeometry;
}
double bottomOfCurveX = ((x / 2));
double bottomOfCurveY = (y + (x * 1.25));
_bs.Point3 = new Point(x, y);
if (_sb == null)
{
_paPoint2 = new PointAnimation();
_paPoint2.From = _bs.Point2;
_paPoint2.To = new Point(bottomOfCurveX, bottomOfCurveY);
_paPoint2.Duration = new Duration(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(1000));
_eEase = new ElasticEase();
_paPoint2.EasingFunction = _eEase;
_sb = new Storyboard();
Storyboard.SetTarget(_paPoint2, _path);
Storyboard.SetTargetProperty(_paPoint2, new PropertyPath("Data.Figures[0].Segments[0].Point2"));
_sb.Children.Add(_paPoint2);
_sb.Begin(this);
}
_paPoint2.From = _bs.Point2;
_paPoint2.To = new Point(bottomOfCurveX, bottomOfCurveY);
_sb.Begin(this);
}

If you want true dynamic motion (ie, when you "shake" the mouse pointer you can create waves that travel along the cord), you will need to use finite element techniques. However if you are ok with static behavior you can simply use Bezier curves.
First I'll briefly describe the finite element approach, then go into more detail on the static approach.
Dynamic approach
Divide your "cord" into a large number (1000 or so) "elements", each with a position and velocity Vector. Use the CompositionTarget.Rendering event to compute each element position as follows:
Compute the pull on each element along the "cord" from adjacent elements, which is proportional to the distance between elements. Assume the cord itself is massless.
Compute the net force vector on each "element" which consists of the pull from each adjacent element along the cord, plus the constant force of gravity.
Use a mass constant to convert the force vector to accelaration, and update the position and velocity using the equations of motion.
Draw the line using a StreamGeometry build with a BeginFigure followed by a PolyLineTo. With so many points there is little reason to do the extra computations to create a cubic bezier approximation.
Static approach
Divide your cord into perhaps 30 segments, each of which is a cubic bezier approximation to the catenary y = a cosh(x/a). Your end control points should be on the catenary curve, the parallels should tangent to the catenaries, and the control line lengths set based on the second derivative of the catenary.
In this case you will probably also want to render a StreamGeometry, using BeginFigure and PolyBezierTo to build it.
I would implement this as a custom Shape subclass "Catenary" similar to Rectangle and Ellipse. In that case, all you have to override the DefiningGeometry property. For efficiency I would also override CacheDefiningGeometry, GetDefiningGeometryBounds, and GetNaturalSize.
You would first decide how to parameterize your catenary, then add DependencyProperties for all your parameters. Make sure you set the AffectsMeasure and AffectsRender flags in your FrameworkPropertyMetadata.
One possible parameterization would be XOffset, YOffset, Length. Another might be XOffset, YOffset, SagRelativeToWidth. It would depend on what would be easiest to bind to.
Once your DependencyProperties are defined, implement your DefiningGeometry property to compute the cubic bezier control points, construct the StreamGeometry, and return it.
If you do this, you can drop a Catenary control anywhere and get a catenary curve.

User bezier curve segments in a path.
http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/dbeniwal321/WPFBezier01302009015211AM/WPFBezier.aspx

IMHO 'hanging' (physically simulated) cables are a case of over-doing it - favouring looks over usability.
Are you sure you're not just cluttering the user-experience ?
In a node/connection-based UI I find clear connections (like in Quartz Composer : http://ellington.tvu.ac.uk/ma/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/images/Quartz%20Composer_screenshot_011.png ) way more important than eye-candy like swinging cables that head in a different direction (down due to gravity) than where the actually connection-point is. (And in the mean time eat up CPU-cycles for the simulation that could be more useful elsewhere)
Just my $0.02

Plot ECG in Winforms

i have no previous experience in plotting in winforms, in one form i want to plot ecg. or lets say a sin wave or any wave function in a specific area, but what i am doing is e.c.g.. rest of the form will be normal form with buttons and labels,
can anybody be nice enough to through in a tutorial
:)

You have few choices, you can write your own control, that will process data and render it. For more complicated plots, that can be a bit complicated, but the basics are always the same, setting X and Y values ranges and then just draw a line using GDI going from left to right, nothing fancy.
As this can get a bit complicated for more advanced features, you could use some charting controls, I'd read this post or check codeproject.com, I remember, that I saw few attempts to write some decent charting controls, which are open source, new articles will probably be coded in WPF, but you should find something older as well.
Edit:
Some links that you can find useful: Graph plotting lib that's main goal is to simulate ECG or another graph plotting lib

You need to create a custom control.
public class MyECGDrawer : Control{}
In it, you override the OnPaint event
protect override OnPaint(PaintEventArgs pe ){}
Then in the paint function, you draw your graphics the way you want it, let's say sin(x)
// refresh background
pe.Graphics.FillRectangle( Brushes.White, 0, 0, Width, Height );
int prevX = -1, prevY = -1;
for(int x = 0; x < Width; x++ )
{
if( prevX >= 0 )
{
pe.Graphics.DrawLine( Pens.Black, prevX, prevY, x, Math.sin(x) );
}
prevX = x;
prevY = Math.sin(x);
}
To force the ECG to redraw, you call the .Invalidate() function on the control. You should be able to drag and drop the control in your form from the designer.
In the end, the class would look like
public class MyECGDrawer : Control{}
In it, you override the OnPaint event
public class MyECGDrawer : Control
{
protect override OnPaint(PaintEventArgs pe )
{
// refresh background
pe.Graphics.FillRectangle( Brushes.White, 0, 0, Width, Height );
int prevX = -1, prevY = -1;
for(int x = 0; x < Width; x++ )
{
if( prevX >= 0 )
pe.Graphics.DrawLine( Pens.Black, prevX, prevY, x, Math.sin(x) );
prevX = x;
prevY = Math.sin(x);
}
}
}

I wrote up the following and tested it. It seems to do what you want, but note that it is simply plotting sin(x) in a loop with no delay - i.e. the plot for sin(x) streams off the left edge so fast you can hardly see it. You can, however, put a break on any line inside the loop and then step through the loop with F5 to see it work slowly - presumably your streaming ECG data will only arrive at some fixed speed so this should not be a problem in your implementation.
In the following, monitor is a PictureBox on a winforms form. Everything else is local.
private void drawStream(){
const int scaleX = 40;
const int scaleY = 40;
Point monitorTopLeft = new Point(0, 0);
Point MonitorTopLeftMinus1 = new Point(-1, 0);
int halfX = monitor.Width / 2;
int halfY = monitor.Height / 2;
Size size = new Size(halfX + 20, monitor.Height);
Graphics g = monitor.CreateGraphics();
g.TranslateTransform(halfX, halfY);
g.ScaleTransform(scaleX, scaleY);
g.Clear(Color.Black);
g.ResetClip();
float lastY = (float)Math.Sin(0);
float y = lastY;
Pen p = new Pen(Color.White, 0.01F);
float stepX = 1F / scaleX;
for (float x = 0; x < 10; x += stepX) {
g.CopyFromScreen(monitor.PointToScreen(monitorTopLeft), MonitorTopLeftMinus1, size, CopyPixelOperation.SourceCopy);
y = (float)Math.Sin(x);
g.DrawLine(p, -stepX, lastY, 0, y);
lastY = y;
}
}
Some additional info that may be helpful:
The origin in a picture box starts
out at the top left corner.
TranslateTransform allows you to
translate (i.e. move) the origin.
In the example, I translate it by
half the picture box's width and
half its height.
ScaleTransform changes the magnification of the picturebox - note that it even magnifies the width of the pen used to draw on the picturebox - this is why the pen's width is set to 0.01.
CopyFromScreen performs a bitblt. Its source point is relative to the screen, the destination is relative to the picturebox and the size of the rectangle to move disregards any transforms (like the scale and translation transforms we added).
Notice that the X coordinates in the DrawLine method are -stepx and 0. All drawing basically occurs right on the y axis (i.e. x = 0) and then CopyFromScreen moves the drawn portion to the left so that it "streams" off to the left.

Unless you are doing this as a learning experience, you may want to consider looking at the free Microsoft Chart Controls for .NET available here.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=130f7986-bf49-4fe5-9ca8-910ae6ea442c&displaylang=en#QuickInfoContainer
That being said, I would offer the following guidelines if you want to roll your own.
Create a user control to encapsulate the plot rendering rather than render directly on the form.
In your control, expose properties to get/set the data you wish to render and add any other properties you want to control the rendering (scaling, panning, colors, etc.)
In you control, either override the OnPaint method or create an event handler for the Paint event. These methods will have a PaintEventArgs object passed to them, which contains a Graphics object as a property. The methods of the Graphics object are used to render points, lines, etc onto the control when it needs to be painted. Most of the drawing operations require either a pen (outlines / lines) or a brush (filled areas). You can use stock objects for these operations (e.g. Pens.Black or Brushes.Red) or you can create your own (see documentation). If you create you own objects, make sure you dispose of them after using them (e.g. using the "using" statement or by calling Dispose).
There are a couple good books on GDI+. I suggest picking one up if you are going in deep.