I am new to WPF, and relatively new to GUI coding, so bear with me if this seems obvious to some.
I am trying to display a randomly generated map using WPF/C#, in order to simulate the behaviour of a propagating RF signal. Each map coordinate can have zero or more items within it - it could be buildings, vehicles, fauna or geographical data (none indicates flat grassy fields). I would like to display this in a window, or on a page to the user. But I don't know how.
My original thought was a canvas with a pre-defined method for drawing items. But the map will be massive, and I only want to display a small portion of the map to the user at any one time.
So, what I want to know is, can I create a canvas, draw what I want onto it, and then display only a small portion of that to the user? If not, or if that is not simple, is there a better way of doing it? I don't necessarily want a specific answer either - a more generic solution would be better (i.e. tell me I need to use a "Blah" with a "Blah blah" would be better than writing out the whole code - I like to learn about these things as much as possible by doing, not copy and paste).
Thanks.
David
Here some ideas:
You can try to paint your objects directly via the GraphicsContext. Here you find an overview.
Also check out CompositionTarget.Rendering, it allows you also to render per frame (as far as possible).
If it is graphically intensive, perhaps it's also a good idea to look into the XNA-framework.
Related
So I did not really know how to phrase this question. I have a picture of a climbing wall with lots of holds. I want the user to be able to touch a hold and it will be added to the current route. The problem is that the holds have different sizes, there is a different number of holds per row etc. I'm new to Xamarin and I heard that using concrete sizes and positions are a bad way to do that. I have no idea which control/s are suited for that task and how to manage such a manual and specific task while also keeping a good alignment for all devices. Here is the picture of the wall so maybe my problem can be easier understood (have to post the link because I do not have enough reputation to post an inline image):
https://i.gyazo.com/a314069f7bf81dd0594294d03a17d9d8.jpg
Thanks in advance!
I'm using Gmap.NET in winforms and I'm trying to figure out proper way to change marker's type (pin style) after marker is created. I'm making application with quite a lot of different overlays and eventually they will run out unique markers.
I tried looking through library, but couldn't find possibility of that. So far my best solution seems to backup markers positions, clear markers and remake them again. But this solution feels far from ideal. Maybe you guys have any better ideas.
Thanks.
The best approach here imo is to derive a CustomMarker and let this type be aware of all the (graphical) states it needs to display. All the marker types provided mostly only differ in the image they display. That way you avoid the hassle of recreating markers over and over again.
I've been trying to create a roll-playing game for a little over a year now, and I thought a good way to test it and flesh it out a bit would be to turn it into a Dungeons and Dragons variant. However, the inherent problem with using a DnD setup is that there's a lot to keep track of, to the point where it becomes impossible for a single person to do by themselves. As such, I thought of writing a C# program to help.
I ran into this problem when I tried using a series of PictureBox objects to represent the spaces on the map where characters can move. I wanted to use PictureBoxes because that would allow me to use images to represent terrain and characters occupying the given space. However, the map I am using is roughly 46 x 75 1-inch squares, totaling 3450 PictureBoxes. This, understandably, slows the application down so much that it actually freezes for minutes at a time while it redraws the map every so often.
I tried two solutions. First, I tried using a Panel object for its free scrolling capabilities in the hopes that the application wouldn't have to redraw the whole map, but rather only the subset of PictureBoxes visible at that time. This helped only a little, and not enough to make the application usable. Second, I looked online, including this forum, and found people having similar problems. However, the problems they were having were entirely unrelated to mine (aside from the whole slow redraw thing) and thus the solutions didn't really apply to me. I did see a few recurring lines that I tried:
this.SetStyle(ControlStyles.AllPaintingInWmPaint, true);
this.SetStyle(ControlStyles.OptimizedDoubleBuffer, true);
this.SetStyle(ControlStyles.ResizeRedraw, true);
I'm not really sure what they do, but they did help a bit. I am still seeing way too much lag, though.
I'm out of ideas at the moment. Is there a better control I could use or a different way of drawing? Thanks in advance for your help!
I would try to develop a solution that only renders the images that are visible on the screen at any given time. Images should only be rendered when you scroll them into focus.
This is a common technique since rendering UI is usually the slowest operation by far. I would bind a view model object to the visible objects, which means you only have to render a subset of the images instead of the entire screen.
Grids with endless scroll sometimes use this approach.
So here's the situation: I need to take a (user-specified) graphic, and allow the user to define and label regions within that graphic. For example, if you uploaded a picture of a face, you might want to define "right eye", "left eye", "nose" etc. Also, having defined the regions, if I select a previously defined region, it should be highlighted on the image somehow. These regions are (obviously) not necessarily rectangular, and they cannot overlap. And if you click within a defined region in the graphic, I would be able to identify which region was clicked on.
There are a couple ways I can think of for doing this, none of which are quite satisfactory. Another developer before me tried doing it with a transparent grid overlaid on the original graphic, fiddling with the background alpha/color for highlighting regions, but I think they rather kludged it. I could either get my hands really dirty trying to clean up their code, or try a completely new approach.
What would you suggest for maximum speed and user-friendliness?
Bounty added: for the best solution that will get me up and running in the minimum time.
The GraphicsPath class is made to do this. Keep a list of them along with the image. Draw the image first, then Graphics.DrawPath() to draw the regions on top of the image.
Hit testing is simple with GraphicsPath.IsVisible(). Iterate the list in reverse order so overlaps work.
Assuming you haven't decided yet on the technology you'll use, I'd suggest WPF; I find most graphics-related tasks easier with WPF (at least in version 4) and it's specifically geared for interactivity, so creating non-rectangular regions using mouse clicks and hit-testing clicks to select shapes would be pretty easy. Loading images is also easy.
However, if you haven't used WPF or Silverlight until now, there is some overhead in learning the basic concepts and APIs; so I'm afraid there's no real way I can recommend it as a maximum speed solution without knowing your (or whoever's will be working on it) competencies. That said, using MVVM and WPF would be definitely the maximum speed solution for me. Also the maximum user-friendliness since WPF enables quite interesting interaction models out-of-the-box, like multi-touch support (that's the trendy one that should be mentioned, right?) and easy non-standard layout and placement of controls.
You need polygons, saved as list of points. And you need hit testing for them. See the link:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/csharpgeneral/thread/40ebadc1-6154-4c7c-9cb1-d608a426b29c
Yesterday, I asked a question about how to dynamically render something in .NET: specifically, I asked about how to create a white "canvas" for "drawing"/rendering upon, what framework to use, etc. However, many of the answers suggested for me to ask a more specific answer, so right now, I have come up with a completely hypothetical (and random) example of what I want to accomplish.
The example is as follows: let's assume that I'm trying to create an app where the user can first draw some rectangles (by clicking or entering dimensions) to create the outlines of their house. Next, they would be able to draw small rectangles inside to signify objects inside the house. Also, they would be able to pan or zoom. (Don't forget, this is a completely random example.)
So, if I were to try to do this, I guess I have the following questions:
How do I create the white "canvas" for drawing everything upon? Some answers to my first question suggested using WPF, and I want to try that. Is there a specific control I need to add to the XAML to allow me to render such dynamic stuff on top of it?
How can I draw/paint figures like these onto the canvas, and how can I change this during runtime (panning/zoom)?
Do I need to create a simple coordinate plane for referencing and storing all the objects and their locations inside the "house"? If so, how?
I hope this isn't too general still, as I think that using such an example would allow people to effectively answer this question. Thanks!
HTML makes a great blank canvas.
Many games utilize OpenGL or DirectX for more advanced (eg. panning/zooming) features.
Unity is a pretty decent platform for such things from what I can gather about it.