Adding transition effects between images on a Windows Form

[Warrick Wilson]

I'm new to C# and I'm trying to get some "toy" programs running to get
familliar with it. So I want to make a slideshow program that will display
one image after another, and have some sort of transition between the
images. Searching for a library to do this, I've found LEADTOOLS (much $$$,
but looks impressive). And a reference to something that Bob Powell did in
an online magazine that's no longer available.

Are there no other libraries for doing transitions?

I also found a lot of entries on doing this on a web page using the
DXTransform filters/effects. I don't want to have a web browser to do this
if I don't need to - is there some way to use these transform filters in a
Windows Forms app?

Thanks.

 

[Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP]]

Warrick,

I would ^seriously^ consider using WPF for this. You could easily
create two images, and then change the opacity of the images along animation
timelines (one going from 0 to 100, the other from 100 to 0 along any curve
you want).

Doing it in GDI would just be too painful knowing that you can do it
MUCH easier in WPF.

 

[Warrick Wilson]

Warrick,

I would ^seriously^ consider using WPF for this. You could easily
create two images, and then change the opacity of the images along
animation timelines (one going from 0 to 100, the other from 100 to 0
along any curve you want).

Doing it in GDI would just be too painful knowing that you can do it
MUCH easier in WPF.

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure that I'm wanting to jump to WPF just yet,
but will consider it (it's on the list of "things to look at").

I was hoping to find someway of using the things descibed here
(http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms532847(VS.85).aspx) so that I
could get the Checkboard, Blinds, and BarnDoor effects between images.

 

[Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP]]

Warrick,

You could do that in a windows forms app, but my understanding of DX is
that rendering is a different beast than in say, GDI and you would have to
make the calls to the DX layer to make the transitions yourself (the filters
you are pointing to, I believe, are specific to IE and it's processing
pipeline for images).

While WPF might be on your todo list, this might be the perfect project
to get your feet wet.

You could do the transitions in GDI, but depending on the transition, it
might be difficult. Changing the opacity of two images is fairly simple,
but the barn doors, for example, that's harder, as you would have to
transform the image in 3D space to get the effect.

 

[Warrick Wilson]

Warrick,

You could do that in a windows forms app, but my understanding of DX is
that rendering is a different beast than in say, GDI and you would have to
make the calls to the DX layer to make the transitions yourself (the
filters you are pointing to, I believe, are specific to IE and it's
processing pipeline for images).

While WPF might be on your todo list, this might be the perfect project
to get your feet wet.

You could do the transitions in GDI, but depending on the transition,
it might be difficult. Changing the opacity of two images is fairly
simple, but the barn doors, for example, that's harder, as you would have
to transform the image in 3D space to get the effect.

I found a sample project from 2005 that did this with some interop and
showing the wipe effect. However, it doesn't run when I get it into VS 2008
and compile. Since I'm not familiar with interop yet (also on the list), I
suspect that there are things that changed in the intervening 3 years. I
keep getting AccessInteropViolation (or something like that).

I think I'll take a look at the WPF stuff over the next couple of days...

Thanks.