Pixelated Text When Using ObjectListView Custom Renderer - vb.net

Question

I found an example online of how to create a business card listview item using the ObjectListView. It demonstrates using a custom renderer to manually draw each Tile within the control.
The sample involves creating buffered graphics and manually drawing each item. I have this working, however, I am finding that all text I draw on the tile is looking pixelated (no matter what settings I use), especially if I draw small text. For example, using a default system font on a normal form looks fine, but in my renderer it looks jagered.
The code looks like this:
Imports BrightIdeasSoftware
Imports System.Drawing.Drawing2D
Imports System.IO
Public Class StoreListRenderer
Inherits AbstractRenderer
Public Overrides Function RenderItem(e As DrawListViewItemEventArgs, g As Graphics, itemBounds As Rectangle, rowObject As Object) As Boolean
' If we're in any other view than Tile, return false to say that we haven't done
' the rendereing and the default process should do it's stuff
Dim olv As ObjectListView = TryCast(e.Item.ListView, ObjectListView)
If olv Is Nothing OrElse olv.View <> View.Tile Then
Return False
End If
' Use buffered graphics to kill flickers
Dim buffered As BufferedGraphics = BufferedGraphicsManager.Current.Allocate(g, itemBounds)
g = buffered.Graphics
g.Clear(olv.BackColor)
g.SmoothingMode = ObjectListView.SmoothingMode
g.TextRenderingHint = ObjectListView.TextRenderingHint
If e.Item.Selected Then
Me.BorderPen = Pens.White
Me.HeaderBackBrush = New SolidBrush(olv.HighlightBackgroundColorOrDefault)
Else
Me.BorderPen = New Pen(Color.FromArgb(&H33, &H33, &H33))
Me.HeaderBackBrush = New SolidBrush(Color.FromArgb(&H33, &H33, &H33))
End If
DrawStoreCard(g, itemBounds, rowObject, olv, DirectCast(e.Item, OLVListItem))
' Finally render the buffered graphics
buffered.Render()
buffered.Dispose()
' Return true to say that we've handled the drawing
Return True
End Function
Friend BorderPen As New Pen(Color.FromArgb(&H33, &H33, &H33))
Friend TextBrush As Brush = New SolidBrush(Color.FromArgb(&H22, &H22, &H22))
Friend HeaderTextBrush As Brush = Brushes.AliceBlue
Friend HeaderBackBrush As Brush = New SolidBrush(Color.FromArgb(&H33, &H33, &H33))
Friend BackBrush As Brush = Brushes.LemonChiffon
Friend BackgroundBrush As Brush = New SolidBrush(Color.FromArgb(38, 38, 38))
Public Sub DrawStoreCard(g As Graphics, itemBounds As Rectangle, rowObject As Object, olv As ObjectListView, item As OLVListItem)
Try
Dim _store As StoreObject = TryCast(rowObject, StoreObject)
' Allow a border around the card
itemBounds.Inflate(-5, -5)
g.FillRectangle(BackgroundBrush, itemBounds)
Dim ColouredPanelRect As Rectangle = New Rectangle(itemBounds.Left + 7, itemBounds.Top + 7, 70, 70)
g.FillRectangle(Brushes.IndianRed, ColouredPanelRect)
Dim fmt As New StringFormat()
fmt.Alignment = StringAlignment.Center
fmt.LineAlignment = StringAlignment.Center
For i As Integer = 0 To olv.Columns.Count - 1
Dim column As OLVColumn = olv.GetColumn(i)
If column.IsTileViewColumn Then
'Draw Store Number
Using font As New Font(fontMgr("Mentone Lig"), 36, FontStyle.Regular, GraphicsUnit.Pixel)
g.TextRenderingHint = Drawing.Text.TextRenderingHint.AntiAliasGridFit
g.SmoothingMode = Drawing2D.SmoothingMode.AntiAlias
g.DrawString(_store.StoreID, font, BackgroundBrush, ColouredPanelRect, fmt)
End Using
'Draw Store Name
Using string_format As New StringFormat()
string_format.Alignment = StringAlignment.Center
string_format.LineAlignment = StringAlignment.Near
g.SmoothingMode = Drawing2D.SmoothingMode.AntiAlias
g.TextRenderingHint = Drawing.Text.TextRenderingHint.AntiAliasGridFit
g.DrawString(_store.StoreName.ToUpper, New Font("Segoe UI", 9, FontStyle.Regular), Brushes.White, itemBounds, string_format)
End Using
...
I have tried playing around AntiAlias and ClearType but both have the same affect.
UPDATE
Here are my results below with using the same font at the same size:
The text at the top represents a normal label placed on a form. The text at the bottom is text drawn on to a listview item (in Tile mode) using the code above. You can easily identify the difference and see that it is not as smooth. Also the larger I make the text the more unsmooth it gets. I have tried playing around with all the settings and currently have it set to:
g.TextRenderingHint = Drawing.Text.TextRenderingHint.ClearTypeGridFit
g.SmoothingMode = Drawing2D.SmoothingMode.AntiAlias
g.CompositingQuality = Drawing2D.CompositingQuality.HighQuality
g.PixelOffsetMode = PixelOffsetMode.HighQuality
Thanks

Answer 1

Okay, I ended up working this out by going through the example again.
The problem was that I was dropping the scaling element from my code which seemed to be causing the pixilation of the text.
By adding the following code back in, it has corrected the smoothness of the text:
Dim size As SizeF = g.MeasureString(txt, font, CInt(itemBounds.Width), fmt)
g.TextRenderingHint = Drawing.Text.TextRenderingHint.ClearTypeGridFit
So my overall code looks like this:
Using font As New Font("Segoe UI", 9, FontStyle.Regular)
' Measure the height of the title
txt = column.GetStringValue(rowObject)
Dim size As SizeF = g.MeasureString(txt, font, CInt(itemBounds.Width), fmt)
g.TextRenderingHint = Drawing.Text.TextRenderingHint.ClearTypeGridFit
g.SmoothingMode = Drawing2D.SmoothingMode.AntiAlias
g.CompositingQuality = Drawing2D.CompositingQuality.HighQuality
g.PixelOffsetMode = PixelOffsetMode.HighQuality
g.DrawString(txt, font, Brushes.LightGray, itemBounds, fmt)
End Using