Image Brush in Silverlight

This article demonstrates how to create and use an image brush in Silverlight using XAML and C#.

Image Brush

An image brush paints an area with an image. The ImageSource property represents the image to be used during the painting by an image brush. The ImageBrush object represents an image brush. 

Creating an Image Brush

The ImageBrush element in XAML creates an image brush. The ImageSource property of the ImageBrush represents the image used in the painting process.

The following code snippet creates an image brush and sets the ImageSource property to an image.

<ImageBrush ImageSource="dock.jpg" />

We can fill a shape with an image brush by setting a shape's Fill property to the image brush. The code snippet in Listing 1 creates a rectangle shape sets the Fill property to an ImageBrush.

<Rectangle

    Width="200"

    Height="100"

    Stroke="Black"

    StrokeThickness="4">

    <Rectangle.Fill>

        <ImageBrush ImageSource="dock.jpg" />

    </Rectangle.Fill>

</Rectangle>

Listing 1

The output looks like Figure 1.

Figure 1

The CreateAnImageBrush method listed in Listing 2 draws same rectangle with an image brush in Figure 1 dynamically.

/// <summary>

/// Fills a rectangle with an ImageBrush

/// </summary>

public void CreateAnImageBrush()

{

    // Create a Rectangle

    Rectangle blueRectangle = new Rectangle();

    blueRectangle.Height = 100;

    blueRectangle.Width = 200;

 

    // Create an ImageBrush

    ImageBrush imgBrush = new ImageBrush();

 

    imgBrush.ImageSource =

        new BitmapImage(new Uri(@"Dock.jpg", UriKind.Relative));

 

    // Fill rectangle with an ImageBrush

    blueRectangle.Fill = imgBrush;

 

    // Add Rectangle to the Grid.

    LayoutRoot.Children.Add(blueRectangle);

}

Listing 2

Summary

In this article, we saw how to create and use an image brush in Silverlight using XAML and C#.