C# design question (Connections)

Question

Hello,

I would like to hear your suggestions on kind of design problem which I have in c#.

So, I am making a program where people can meet and draw in the same window over the internet or LAN. I am drawing into a bitmap and than I set it to a pictureBox component.

I have a hard time to decide how to send updates to each user, what is the best way to do it.

Should I send coordinates of mouse and than do the drawing on each users screen or stream the image to each. Maybe you know better solution to keep it synchronized and efficient.

Thank you.

Answer 1

I've worked on this sort of app before, and it's much more bandwidth-efficient to send a data structure indicating mouse movement, clicks, drawing primitives, etc. across the line, then do the rendering separately on both sides. Properly implemented, this allows for almost real-time mirroring, which you'll have a hard time getting if you're sending bitmaps back and forth.