So I've been sharing some thoughts on the above topic title on my website about fast, unsafe pixel access. A gentlemen gave me a rough example of how he'd do it in C++, but that doesn't help me in C# unless I can interop it, and the interop is fast as well. I had found a class in the internet that was written using MSDN help, to unsafely access pixels. The class is exceptionally fast, but it's not fast enough. Here's the class:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;
namespace DCOMProductions.Desktop.ScreenViewer {
public unsafe class UnsafeBitmap {
Bitmap bitmap;
// three elements used for MakeGreyUnsafe
int width;
BitmapData bitmapData = null;
Byte* pBase = null;
public UnsafeBitmap(Bitmap bitmap) {
this.bitmap = new Bitmap(bitmap);
}
public UnsafeBitmap(int width, int height) {
this.bitmap = new Bitmap(width, height, PixelFormat.Format32bppArgb);
}
public void Dispose() {
bitmap.Dispose();
}
public Bitmap Bitmap {
get {
return (bitmap);
}
}
private Point PixelSize {
get {
GraphicsUnit unit = GraphicsUnit.Pixel;
RectangleF bounds = bitmap.GetBounds(ref unit);
return new Point((int)bounds.Width, (int)bounds.Height);
}
}
public void LockBitmap() {
GraphicsUnit unit = GraphicsUnit.Pixel;
RectangleF boundsF = bitmap.GetBounds(ref unit);
Rectangle bounds = new Rectangle((int)boundsF.X,
(int)boundsF.Y,
(int)boundsF.Width,
(int)boundsF.Height);
// Figure out the number of bytes in a row
// This is rounded up to be a multiple of 4
// bytes, since a scan line in an image must always be a multiple of 4 bytes
// in length.
width = (int)boundsF.Width * sizeof(Pixel);
if (width % 4 != 0) {
width = 4 * (width / 4 + 1);
}
bitmapData =
bitmap.LockBits(bounds, ImageLockMode.ReadWrite, PixelFormat.Format32bppArgb);
pBase = (Byte*)bitmapData.Scan0.ToPointer();
}
public Pixel GetPixel(int x, int y) {
Pixel returnValue = *PixelAt(x, y);
return returnValue;
}
public void SetPixel(int x, int y, Pixel colour) {
Pixel* pixel = PixelAt(x, y);
*pixel = colour;
}
public void UnlockBitmap() {
bitmap.UnlockBits(bitmapData);
bitmapData = null;
pBase = null;
}
public Pixel* PixelAt(int x, int y) {
return (Pixel*)(pBase + y * width + x * sizeof(Pixel));
}
}
}
Basically what I am doing is copying the entire screen and comparing each pixel to and old copy. On a 1680x1050 bitmap, this takes approximately 300 milliseconds using the following code.
private Bitmap GetInvalidFrame(Bitmap frame) {
Stopwatch sp = new Stopwatch();
sp.Start();
if (m_FrameBackBuffer == null) {
return frame;
}
Int32 pixelsToRead = frame.Width * frame.Height;
Int32 x = 0, y = 0;
UnsafeBitmap unsafeBitmap = new UnsafeBitmap(frame);
UnsafeBitmap unsafeBuffBitmap = new UnsafeBitmap(m_FrameBackBuffer);
UnsafeBitmap retVal = new UnsafeBitmap(frame.Width, frame.Height);
unsafeBitmap.LockBitmap();
unsafeBuffBitmap.LockBitmap();
retVal.LockBitmap();
do {
for (x = 0; x < frame.Width; x++) {
Pixel newPixel = unsafeBitmap.GetPixel(x, y);
Pixel oldPixel = unsafeBuffBitmap.GetPixel(x, y);
if (newPixel.Alpha != oldPixel.Alpha || newPixel.Red != oldPixel.Red || newPixel.Green != oldPixel.Green || newPixel.Blue != oldPixel.Blue) {
retVal.SetPixel(x, y, newPixel);
}
else {
// Skip pixel
}
}
y++;
} while (y != frame.Height);
unsafeBitmap.UnlockBitmap();
unsafeBuffBitmap.UnlockBitmap();
retVal.UnlockBitmap();
sp.Stop();
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(sp.Elapsed.Milliseconds.ToString());
sp.Reset();
return retVal.Bitmap;
}
Is there any possible method/means/approach that I could speed this up to about 30ms? I can copy the screen in about 30ms using Graphics.CopyFromScreen(), so that produces approximately 30 frames each second. However, a program only runs as fast as its slower counterpart, so the 300ms delay in GetInvalidFrame, slows this down to about 1 - 3 frames each second. This isn't good for a meeting software.
Any advice, approaches, pointers in the right direction would be absolutely wonderful! Also, the code that is used to draw the bitmap on the client-side is below as well.
To comment on Dmitriy's answer/comment:
#region RootWorkItem
private ScreenClient m_RootWorkItem;
/// <summary>
/// Gets the RootWorkItem
/// </summary>
public ScreenClient RootWorkItem {
get {
if (m_RootWorkItem == null) {
m_RootWorkItem = new ScreenClient();
m_RootWorkItem.FrameRead += new EventHandler<FrameEventArgs>(RootWorkItem_FrameRead);
}
return m_RootWorkItem;
}
}
#endregion
private void RootWorkItem_FrameRead(Object sender, FrameEventArgs e) {
if (e.Frame != null) {
if (uxSurface.Image != null) {
Bitmap frame = (Bitmap)uxSurface.Image;
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(frame);
g.DrawImage(e.Frame, 0, 0); // Draw only updated pixels
uxSurface.Image = frame;
}
else {
uxSurface.Image = e.Frame; // Draw initial, full image
}
}
else {
uxSurface.Image = null;
}
}