Scaling WPF content before rendering to bitmap

Question

Background: I'm working on a silverlight (1.0) application that dynamically builds a map of the United States with icons and text overlayed at specific locations. The map works great in the browser and now I need to get a static (printable and insertable into documents/powerpoints) copy of a displayed map.

Objective: In order to get a printable copy of the map that can also be used in powerpoint slides, word, etc. I've chosen to create an ASP.NET HttpHandler to recreate the xaml on the server side in WPF and then render the WPF to a bitmap image which is returned as a png file, generated at 300dpi for better print quality.

Problem: This works great with one problem, I can't get the image to scale to a specified size. I've tried several different things, some of which can be seen in the commented out lines. I need to be able to specify a height and width of the image, either in inches or pixels, I don't necessarily care which, and have the xaml scale to that size for the generated bitmap. Currently, if I make the size bigger than the root canvas, the canvas gets rendered at its original size in the top left corner of the generated image at the size specified. Below is the important part of my httphandler. The root canvas stored as "MyImage" has a Height of 600 and a Width of 800. What am I missing to get the content to scale to fit the size specified?

I don't fully understand what the dimensions being passed into Arrange() and Measure() do as some of this code was taken from online examples. I also don't fully understand the RenderTargetBitmap stuff. Any guidance would be appreciated.

Public Sub Capture(ByVal MyImage As Canvas) ' Determine the constraining scale to maintain the aspect ratio and the bounds of the image size Dim scale As Double = Math.Min(Width / MyImage.Width, Height / MyImage.Height)

'Dim vbox As New Viewbox()
'vbox.Stretch = Stretch.Uniform
'vbox.StretchDirection = StretchDirection.Both
'vbox.Height = Height * scale * 300 / 96.0
'vbox.Width = Width * scale * 300 / 96.0
'vbox.Child = MyImage

Dim bounds As Rect = New Rect(0, 0, MyImage.Width * scale, MyImage.Height * scale)
MyImage.Measure(New Size(Width * scale, Height * scale))
MyImage.Arrange(bounds)
'MyImage.UpdateLayout()

' Create the target bitmap
Dim rtb As RenderTargetBitmap = New RenderTargetBitmap(CInt(Width * scale * 300 / 96.0), CInt(Height * scale * 300 / 96.0), 300, 300, PixelFormats.Pbgra32)

' Render the image to the target bitmap
Dim dv As DrawingVisual = New DrawingVisual()
Using ctx As DrawingContext = dv.RenderOpen()
    Dim vb As New VisualBrush(MyImage)
    'Dim vb As New VisualBrush(vbox)
    ctx.DrawRectangle(vb, Nothing, New Rect(New System.Windows.Point(), bounds.Size))
End Using
rtb.Render(dv)

' Encode the image in the format selected
Dim encoder As System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BitmapEncoder
Select Case Encoding.ToLower
    Case "jpg"
        encoder = New System.Windows.Media.Imaging.JpegBitmapEncoder()
    Case "png"
        encoder = New System.Windows.Media.Imaging.PngBitmapEncoder()
    Case "gif"
        encoder = New System.Windows.Media.Imaging.GifBitmapEncoder()
    Case "bmp"
        encoder = New System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BmpBitmapEncoder()
    Case "tif"
        encoder = New System.Windows.Media.Imaging.TiffBitmapEncoder()
    Case "wmp"
        encoder = New System.Windows.Media.Imaging.WmpBitmapEncoder()
End Select
encoder.Frames.Add(System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BitmapFrame.Create(rtb))

' Create the memory stream to save the encoded image.
retImageStream = New System.IO.MemoryStream()
encoder.Save(retImageStream)
retImageStream.Flush()
retImageStream.Seek(0, System.IO.SeekOrigin.Begin)
MyImage = Nothing

End Sub

Answer 1

This should be enough to get you started:

private void ExportCanvas(int width, int height)
{
    string path = @"c:\temp\Test.tif";
    FileStream fs = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Create);


    RenderTargetBitmap renderBitmap = new RenderTargetBitmap(width,
                                                             height, 1/300, 1/300, PixelFormats.Pbgra32);

    DrawingVisual visual = new DrawingVisual();
    using (DrawingContext context = visual.RenderOpen())
    {
     VisualBrush brush = new VisualBrush(MyCanvas);
     context.DrawRectangle(brush,
                           null,
                           new Rect(new Point(), new Size(MyCanvas.Width, MyCanvas.Height)));
    }

    visual.Transform = new ScaleTransform(width / MyCanvas.ActualWidth, height / MyCanvas.ActualHeight);

    renderBitmap.Render(visual);

    BitmapEncoder encoder = new TiffBitmapEncoder();
    encoder.Frames.Add(BitmapFrame.Create(renderBitmap));
    encoder.Save(fs);
    fs.Close();
}

Answer 2

This is what ended up working for me:

Public Sub Capture(ByVal MyImage As Canvas)
        ' Normally we would obtain a user's configured DPI setting to account for the possibilty of a high DPI setting. 
        ' However, this code is running server side so the client's DPI is not obtainable.
        Const SCREEN_DPI As Double = 96.0   ' Screen DPI
        Const TARGET_DPI As Double = 300.0  ' Print Quality DPI

        ' Determine the constraining scale to maintain the aspect ratio and the bounds of the image size
        Dim scale As Double = Math.Min(Width * SCREEN_DPI / MyImage.Width, Height * SCREEN_DPI / MyImage.Height)

        ' Setup the bounds of the image
        Dim bounds As Rect = New Rect(0, 0, MyImage.Width * scale, MyImage.Height * scale)
        MyImage.Measure(New Size(MyImage.Width * scale, MyImage.Height * scale))
        MyImage.Arrange(bounds)

        ' Create the target bitmap
        Dim rtb As RenderTargetBitmap = New RenderTargetBitmap(CDbl(MyImage.Width * scale / SCREEN_DPI * TARGET_DPI), CDbl(MyImage.Height * scale / SCREEN_DPI * TARGET_DPI), TARGET_DPI, TARGET_DPI, PixelFormats.Pbgra32)

        ' Render the image to the target bitmap
        Dim dv As DrawingVisual = New DrawingVisual()
        Using ctx As DrawingContext = dv.RenderOpen()
            Dim vb As New VisualBrush(MyImage)
            ctx.DrawRectangle(vb, Nothing, New Rect(New System.Windows.Point(), bounds.Size))
        End Using
        ' Transform the visual to scale the image to our desired size.
        'dv.Transform = New ScaleTransform(scale, scale)

        ' Render the visual to the bitmap.
        rtb.Render(dv)

        ' Encode the image in the format selected. If no valid format was selected, default to png.
        Dim encoder As System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BitmapEncoder
        Select Case Encoding.ToLower
            Case "jpg"
                encoder = New System.Windows.Media.Imaging.JpegBitmapEncoder()
            Case "png"
                encoder = New System.Windows.Media.Imaging.PngBitmapEncoder()
            Case "gif"
                encoder = New System.Windows.Media.Imaging.GifBitmapEncoder()
            Case "bmp"
                encoder = New System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BmpBitmapEncoder()
            Case "tif"
                encoder = New System.Windows.Media.Imaging.TiffBitmapEncoder()
            Case "wmp"
                encoder = New System.Windows.Media.Imaging.WmpBitmapEncoder()
            Case Else
                encoder = New System.Windows.Media.Imaging.PngBitmapEncoder()
        End Select
        encoder.Frames.Add(System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BitmapFrame.Create(rtb))

        ' Create the memory stream to save the encoded image.
        retImageStream = New System.IO.MemoryStream()
        encoder.Save(retImageStream)
        retImageStream.Flush()
        retImageStream.Seek(0, System.IO.SeekOrigin.Begin)
        MyImage = Nothing
    End Sub