Serializing a bitmap image to a base64? - serialization

Question

I've been playing around with the resco API for windows mobile 6: http://www.resco.net/ and one thing they do is serialize bitmap images and base64 encode them in the .resx file, for example like this:
<data name="buttonCell2.ImagePressed" type="System.Drawing.Bitmap, System.Drawing" mimetype="application/x-microsoft.net.object.bytearray.base64">
<value>
iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAEMAAAAaCAMAAADblRF+AAAAAXNSR0IArs4c6QAAAARnQU1BAACxjwv8
YQUAAAAgY0hSTQAAeiYAAICEAAD6AAAAgOgAAHUwAADqYAAAOpgAABdwnLpRPAAAAYZQTFRFtgAA////
wAAAygAA2wAA2AAA0gAAuQAAvQAAsQAAwwAAzgAAxgAA1QAA3wAA4gAAswAArgAA5QAA5wAArAAA6gAA
nQAA2QAAgAAA/wD/5AAApwAAxwAAugAA4AAAoQAAlQAAqgAAqAAAmgAAwgAAsAAAzQAA6AAA1wAA3gAA
dQAAfAAAogAAvgAAsgAA/fTprQAAzwAAqwAAfwAAzAAAxAAAkQAAxQAAtAAAtQAA9M6Rz4SEsSoq+PDw
agAAggAApAAAtDAw//36ZgAAewAAyX5+67uCbgAAdAAAyQkJjAAA+uO8qQYGoRsXtCwqeAAAYwAA1pld
fCQWZQcEkwAA2qlqtWU/dRgP/fXmnCcnqGU/+d24mwAApQAAqicnjgAA/Pn5/fTneCQVigAA4qtxhx0b
bAAA/fLkgCYY//38rB4edAcEp2E6owAAjx8UlwAA/ffucgAAcwAA0X94dgAAuXp2cAAAhQAAZQAAngAA
aAAAnwAAxzAwgiQejQAA6s/PrGpDfx8Ulyx+wgAAASBJREFUOE+l1dVWw1AUBNBzkhYIUigUuUnapO7u
WHF3d3d31z8nXYsvuGe/zzzOAGNs7fchnG7jkL5aMuIM2OJyWFck4CIpkwfljrlSj5AMtHIJJIWpdgY/
05G8SfY3c/HLpvw9g5Ntu1lu4iabP8bh/F21yI3cZMfoCowoGUc9gSPTByGnL2ghCPoQQopoIhER7jZV
M4mKcHuZrSPJIjxpngoSD8Lwa7SGJIpw5LaLJHaE7muoJQGEN71QTVJA6F+QBBIJ4SVnrSKxIsx8OStJ
nAjz+0qRa8P+Q8UJhL1nLdZAEOs9hYsBd8IrcfMmOo6BfY5FbFZuts4dY5NnD3OaK2XjknKdfe8aHWzo
cVXfaOGyNdh1U/4Gw3ocOcXL8T+dxW1D92ffagAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==
</value>
</data>
And it gets loaded up like so:
this.buttonCell1.ImagePressed = ((System.Drawing.Image)(resources.GetObject("buttonCell1.ImagePressed")));
When I base 64 decode the value I get a .bin which I can load in paint and it looks like the button image.
My quesiton is: how do I serialize a bitmap image (or any image really) into text and then base64 encode it so I can add it to the resx file in a Windows Mobile project.

Answer 1

You could do something like this. Substitute the first row for a more valid one :)
var myImage = new Bitmap(50,50);
var ms = new MemoryStream();
myImage.Save(ms, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Bmp);
byte[] data = new byte[ms.Length];
ms.Read(data, 0, data.Length);
var base64ConvertedString = Convert.ToBase64String(data);

Answer 2

public BitmapImage Base64ToImage(string base64String)
{
byte[] imageBytes = Convert.FromBase64String(base64String);
MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(imageBytes, 0,imageBytes.Length);
BitmapImage image2 = new BitmapImage();
image2.SetSource(ms);
ms.Close();
return image2;
}
call the function like this,
BitmapImage test = new BitmapImage();
test = Base64ToImage(split[3].ToString());
ImageBrush berriesBrush = new ImageBrush();
berriesBrush.ImageSource = test;
button1.Backgroud=berriesBrush;