PictureBox control is used to display images in Windows Forms. In this article, I will discuss how to use a PictureBox control to display images in Windows Forms applications.

Creating a PictureBox

PictureBox class represents a PictureBox control. The following code snippet creates a PictureBox, sets its width and height and adds control to the Form by calling Controls.Add() method.

C# Code

  1. PictureBox imageControl = newPictureBox();
  2. imageControl.Width = 400;
  3. imageControl.Height = 400;
  4. Controls.Add(imageControl);

VB.NET Code

  1. Dim imageControl AsNewPictureBox()
  2. imageControl.Width = 400
  3. imageControl.Height = 400

Display an Image

Image property is used to set an image to be displayed in a PictureBox control. The following code snippet creates a Bitmap from an image and sets the Image property of PictureBox control. Code also sets the Dock property of PictureBox.

C# Code

  1. privatevoid DisplayImage()
  2. {
  3. PictureBox imageControl = newPictureBox();
  4. imageControl.Width = 400;
  5. imageControl.Height = 400;
  6. Bitmap image = newBitmap("C:\\Images\\Creek.jpg");
  7. imageControl.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
  8. imageControl.Image = (Image) image;
  9. Controls.Add(imageControl);
  10. }

VB.NET Code

  1. PrivateSub DisplayImage()
  2. Dim imageControl AsNewPictureBox()
  3. imageControl.Width = 400
  4. imageControl.Height = 400
  5. Dim Image AsNewBitmap("C:\\Images\\Creek.jpg")
  6. imageControl.Dock = DockStyle.Fill
  7. imageControl.Image = Image
  8. Controls.Add(imageControl)
  9. EndSub

The output looks like Figure 1 where an image is displayed.

PictureBox

SizeMode

SizeMode property is used to position an image within a PictureBox. It can be Normal, StretchImage, AutoSize, CenterImage, and Zoom. The following code snippet sets SizeMode property of a PictureBox control.

C# Code

  1. imageControl.SizeMode = PictureBoxSizeMode.CenterImage;

VB.NET Code

  1. imageControl.SizeMode = PictureBoxSizeMode.CenterImage

Summary

In this article, we discussed discuss how to use a PictureBox control to display images in Windows Forms applications.

Further Readings