ADO.NET 3.5 Cookbook, 2nd Edition

8.18. Displaying an Image from a Database in a Windows Forms Control

Problem

You need to display an image from a database in a Windows Forms control.

Solution

Read the image into a byte array and load it directly into a PictureBox control using a MemoryStream.

Follow these steps:

1. Create a C# Windows Forms application, LoadImageIntoWindowsFormControl.

2. Add the following control to the Form1 design surface:

   • PictureBox named productPhotoPictureBox

   The completed layout of the Windows Form named Form1 is shown in Figure 8-35.

Figure 8-35. Layout for Form1 in LoadImageIntoWindowsFormControl solution

The C# code in Form1.cs in the project LoadImageIntoWindowsFormControl is shown in Example 8-30. The solution retrieves the LargePhoto binary field from the Production.ProductPhoto table in AdventureWorks for ProductPhotoID = 100 into a byte array. A MemoryStream object is created from the byte array. The static FromStream() method of the System.Drawing.Image class is used to load the image into the PictureBox from the MemoryStream.

Example 8-30. File: Form1.cs for LoadImageIntoWindowsFormControl solution

using System; using System.Data; using System.Data.SqlClient; using System.IO; using System.Windows.Forms; using System.Drawing; namespace LoadImageIntoWindowsFormControl { public partial class Form1 : Form { public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); productPhotoPictureBox.SizeMode = PictureBoxSizeMode.AutoSize; ...