How to: Load an Image as a Thumbnail
The following examples show how to load an Image as a thumbnail to conserve application memory.
Example
The following example sets the DecodePixelWidth property of a BitmapImage in Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) to reduce the memory required to load the image.
<!-- Simple image rendering. However, rendering an image this way may not
result in the best use of application memory. See markup below which
creates the same end result but using less memory. -->
<Image Width="200"
Source="C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\My Pictures\Sample Pictures\Water Lilies.jpg"/>
<Image Width="200">
<Image.Source>
<!-- To save significant application memory, set the DecodePixelWidth or
DecodePixelHeight of the BitmapImage value of the image source to the desired
height and width of the rendered image. If you don't do this, the application will
cache the image as though it were rendered as its normal size rather then just
the size that is displayed. -->
<!-- Note: In order to preserve aspect ratio, only set either DecodePixelWidth
or DecodePixelHeight but not both. -->
<BitmapImage DecodePixelWidth="200"
UriSource="C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\My Pictures\Sample Pictures\Water Lilies.jpg" />
</Image.Source>
</Image>
The following example sets the DecodePixelWidth property of a BitmapImage in code to reduce the memory required to load the image.
// Create Image Element
Image myImage = new Image();
myImage.Width = 200;
// Create source
BitmapImage myBitmapImage = new BitmapImage();
// BitmapImage.UriSource must be in a BeginInit/EndInit block
myBitmapImage.BeginInit();
myBitmapImage.UriSource = new Uri(@"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\My Pictures\Sample Pictures\Water Lilies.jpg");
// To save significant application memory, set the DecodePixelWidth or
// DecodePixelHeight of the BitmapImage value of the image source to the desired
// height or width of the rendered image. If you don't do this, the application will
// cache the image as though it were rendered as its normal size rather then just
// the size that is displayed.
// Note: In order to preserve aspect ratio, set DecodePixelWidth
// or DecodePixelHeight but not both.
myBitmapImage.DecodePixelWidth = 200;
myBitmapImage.EndInit();
//set image source
myImage.Source = myBitmapImage;