[2005] Get a Pixel Color of a point in a screen

[Lasering]

Hi!!

I want to get the pixel color of the screen, in determinated point. I'm correnctly taking a screenshot and getting the information from there, but that takes a lot of time, and i need to have the information every 10 ms without putting to much load on the cumputer. Can you help me?

[Paul M]

Dim c as Color
c = Image.GetPixel(x, Y)

Should be as simple as that

[Lasering]

just one problem. Where u put Image. that image was to refer to the screen image.

[Paul M]

Replace file here with the path to your screen shot taken

Dim bitmap As New Bitmap("file here")
Dim c As Color = bitmap.GetPixel(x, y)

[Lasering]

that i know how to do! Let me explain better:
If u dont have any window open u just see ur windows background image (wallpaper), if you have lets Firefox open u see the colors of the site you are in, right?

Well i want to get the pixel color of the point x, y of the screen. The screen here means whatever you have top most in that point in windows. I hope i explained well now

[Dark Anima]

Bump, I've been needing the same thing for centuries, just never found out how. I wonder it it's even possible to do? Is there a class to get the current screen as a bitmap and then do the pixel analysis?

[boops boops]

When you want to do something impossible in GDI+, use the Graphics.CopyFromScreen method. (The first argument, Source, is the screen coordinate of the point you want to capture, and the second one, Destination, is the graphics coordinate of where you want to copy the point to. They forgot to tell you that in the help files.)

Here's a little working example I rustled up on a default Form. It reports the ARGB color value of any point on the screen in the Form's title bar. This technique captures only a single pixel, so probably it won't add too much CPU load. On my system it reports a CPU usage ranging from 2 to 8% when running from VS2008 Express.

Public Class Form1

    Private WithEvents timer1 As New Windows.Forms.Timer

    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
                    ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

        timer1.Interval = 10
        timer1.Start()

    End Sub


    Private Sub Timer1_Tick(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
                    ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles timer1.Tick

        Using bmp As New Bitmap(1, 1)
            Using g As Graphics = Graphics.FromImage(bmp)
                g.CopyFromScreen(Windows.Forms.Cursor.Position, _
                                          New Point(0, 0), New Size(1, 1))
            End Using
            Me.Text = bmp.GetPixel(0, 0).ToString
            Me.Invalidate()
        End Using
       
    End Sub

End Class

all the best, BB