How to convert IPictureDisp to System.Drawing.Image

Question

From a COM library (Microsoft Office Document Imaging aka MODI) I receive an image as an IPictureDisp which I would like to convert to a System.Drawing.Image object.

Wh

Answer 1

As it seems the picture obtained from the Microsoft Office Document Imaging COM components is not a valid IPictureDisp object and there seems no way to convert it.

Answer 2

Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6.Support.IPictureDispToImage is not guaranteed to always be included in future updates. So... taking the example from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555417 I came up with the following

Example

Public Class ImageToPictureDispConverter

Inherits System.Windows.Forms.AxHost

Public Sub New()
    MyBase.New("{63109182-966B-4e3c-A8B2-8BC4A88D221C}")
End Sub

Public Function GetImageFromIPictureDisp(ByVal objImage As stdole.IPictureDisp) As System.Drawing.Image
    Dim objPicture As System.Drawing.Image
    objPicture = CType(MyBase.GetPictureFromIPicture(objImage), System.Drawing.Image)

    Return objPicture
End Function

End Class

I see in your constructor that you pass an empty string. I ended up having to pass the following string "{63109182-966B-4e3c-A8B2-8BC4A88D221C}". If I passed an empty string I received a system.formatexception error. It looks like you have everything I have except for this string in your call to base.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Function GetImage(MyIPicture As stdole.IPictureDisp) As Drawing.Image
    If CType(MyIPicture.Type, Integer) <> 1 then Throw New ArgumentException("Image not supported")
    Return Drawing.Image.FromHbitmap(MyIPicture.Handle, MyIPicture.hPal)
End Function

Inspired from this post in the MSDN Forum. No idea why the CType(MyIPicture.Type, Integer) = 1 is required, but it works..

Answer 4

Have you tried:

picture1.image = Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6.Support.IPictureDispToImage(pict)

Answer 5

Check out this article.

It describes three different options to take, just pick the one you find easiest or "cleanest" for your purposes (including the one you claim not to be working for you).

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Olivier Jacot-Descombes: The link above is broken. I've added the corresponding link from the Internet Archive WayBackMachine:

Converting between IPictureDisp and System.Drawing.Image (MSDN Blogs > Andrew Whitechapel).