Video Brush in WPF

This article demonstrates how to implement video brushes in WPF using MediaElement XAML element.

Video Brush

A video brush is a brush similar to any other brush. Instead of painting an area with a color, a video brush paints an area with a video. The video contents are provided by a MediaElement. We can use a visualBrush to play a media by setting a MediaElement as its Visual attribute.

The following code snippet creates a MediaElement. The Source property of the MediaElement is the name of the video file.

  <MediaElement Source="Lake.wmv"                              Name="McMediaElement" Width="450" Height="250" LoadedBehavior="Manual" UnloadedBehavior="Stop" Stretch="Fill />

The code snippet in Listing 27 creates a VisualBrush and sets its Visual attribute to a MediaElement.

<VisualBrush >

      <VisualBrush.Visual >

<MediaElement Source="Lake.wmv"                              Name="McMediaElement" Width="450" Height="250" LoadedBehavior="Manual" UnloadedBehavior="Stop" Stretch="Fill />

      </VisualBrush.Visual >

</VisualBrush >

Listing 27

The code snippet in Listing 28 creates a MediaElement and sets it as the Visual property of a VisualBrush.

MediaElement McMediaElement = new MediaElement();

McMediaElement.Source = new Uri("Lake.wmv", UriKind.Relative);

McMediaElement.IsMuted = false;

VisualBrush videoBrush = new VisualBrush ();

videoBrush.Visual = McMediaElement; 

Listing 28