Image vs BitmapImage vs Bitmap
Image is a base abstract class representing images in GDI+. Bitmap is a concrete implementation of this base class.
BitmapImage is a way to represent an image in a vector based GUI engine like WPF and Silverlight. Contrary to a Bitmap
, it is not based on GDI+. It is based on the Windows Imaging Component.
There are ways to load a BitmapImage
from a Bitmap
.
WinForms/GDI+ uses the abstract class System.Drawing.Image
and its implementation Bitmap
.
WPF uses the abstract class System.Windows.Media.ImageSource
(and BitmapSource
) and its implementation BitmapImage
.
WPF also has a control named Image
, which is a FrameworkElement
that contains and displays an ImageSource
.
It took me a while to untangle that mess of terminology...