Can an ASP.NET MVC controller return an Image?

Can I create a Controller that simply returns an image asset?

I would like to route this logic through a controller, whenever a URL such as the following is requested:

www.mywebsite.com/resource/image/topbanner

The controller will look up topbanner.png and send that image directly back to the client.

I've seen examples of this where you have to create a View - I don't want to use a View. I want to do it all with just the Controller.

Is this possible?

Use the base controllers File method.

public ActionResult Image(string id)
{
    var dir = Server.MapPath("/Images");
    var path = Path.Combine(dir, id + ".jpg"); //validate the path for security or use other means to generate the path.
    return base.File(path, "image/jpeg");
}

As a note, this seems to be fairly efficient. I did a test where I requested the image through the controller (http://localhost/MyController/Image/MyImage) and through the direct URL (http://localhost/Images/MyImage.jpg) and the results were:

MVC: 7.6 milliseconds per photo
Direct: 6.7 milliseconds per photo

Note: this is the average time of a request. The average was calculated by making thousands of requests on the local machine, so the totals should not include network latency or bandwidth issues.

Using the release version of MVC, here is what I do:

[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Get)]
[OutputCache(CacheProfile = "CustomerImages")]
public FileResult Show(int customerId, string imageName)
{
    var path = string.Concat(ConfigData.ImagesDirectory, customerId, "\\", imageName);
    return new FileStreamResult(new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open), "image/jpeg");
}

I obviously have some application specific stuff in here regarding the path construction, but the returning of the FileStreamResult is nice and simple.

I did some performance testing in regards to this action against your everyday call to the image (bypassing the controller) and the difference between the averages was only about 3 milliseconds (controller avg was 68ms, non-controller was 65ms).

I had tried some of the other methods mentioned in answers here and the performance hit was much more dramatic... several of the solutions responses were as much as 6x the non-controller (other controllers avg 340ms, non-controller 65ms).

To expland on Dyland's response slightly:

Three classes implement the FileResult class:

System.Web.Mvc.FileResult
      System.Web.Mvc.FileContentResult
      System.Web.Mvc.FilePathResult
      System.Web.Mvc.FileStreamResult

They're all fairly self explanatory:

For file path downloads where the file exists on disk, use FilePathResult - this is the easiest way and avoids you having to use Streams.
For byte[] arrays (akin to Response.BinaryWrite), use FileContentResult.
For byte[] arrays where you want the file to download (content-disposition: attachment), use FileStreamResult in a similar way to below, but with a MemoryStream and using GetBuffer().
For Streams use FileStreamResult. It's called a FileStreamResult but it takes a Stream so I'd guess it works with a MemoryStream.

Below is an example of using the content-disposition technique (not tested):

    [AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
    public ActionResult GetFile()
    {
        // No need to dispose the stream, MVC does it for you
        string path = Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, "App_Data", "myimage.png");
        FileStream stream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open);
        FileStreamResult result = new FileStreamResult(stream, "image/png");
        result.FileDownloadName = "image.png";
        return result;
    }

This might be helpful if you'd like to modify the image before returning it:

public ActionResult GetModifiedImage()
{
    Image image = Image.FromFile(Path.Combine(Server.MapPath("/Content/images"), "image.png"));

    using (Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(image))
    {
        // do something with the Graphics (eg. write "Hello World!")
        string text = "Hello World!";

        // Create font and brush.
        Font drawFont = new Font("Arial", 10);
        SolidBrush drawBrush = new SolidBrush(Color.Black);

        // Create point for upper-left corner of drawing.
        PointF stringPoint = new PointF(0, 0);

        g.DrawString(text, drawFont, drawBrush, stringPoint);
    }

    MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();

    image.Save(ms, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Png);

    return File(ms.ToArray(), "image/png");
}

You can create your own extension and do this way.

public static class ImageResultHelper
{
    public static string Image<T>(this HtmlHelper helper, Expression<Action<T>> action, int width, int height)
            where T : Controller
    {
        return ImageResultHelper.Image<T>(helper, action, width, height, "");
    }

    public static string Image<T>(this HtmlHelper helper, Expression<Action<T>> action, int width, int height, string alt)
            where T : Controller
    {
        var expression = action.Body as MethodCallExpression;
        string actionMethodName = string.Empty;
        if (expression != null)
        {
            actionMethodName = expression.Method.Name;
        }
        string url = new UrlHelper(helper.ViewContext.RequestContext, helper.RouteCollection).Action(actionMethodName, typeof(T).Name.Remove(typeof(T).Name.IndexOf("Controller"))).ToString();         
        //string url = LinkBuilder.BuildUrlFromExpression<T>(helper.ViewContext.RequestContext, helper.RouteCollection, action);
        return string.Format("<img src=\"{0}\" width=\"{1}\" height=\"{2}\" alt=\"{3}\" />", url, width, height, alt);
    }
}

public class ImageResult : ActionResult
{
    public ImageResult() { }

    public Image Image { get; set; }
    public ImageFormat ImageFormat { get; set; }

    public override void ExecuteResult(ControllerContext context)
    {
        // verify properties 
        if (Image == null)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("Image");
        }
        if (ImageFormat == null)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("ImageFormat");
        }

        // output 
        context.HttpContext.Response.Clear();
        context.HttpContext.Response.ContentType = GetMimeType(ImageFormat);
        Image.Save(context.HttpContext.Response.OutputStream, ImageFormat);
    }

    private static string GetMimeType(ImageFormat imageFormat)
    {
        ImageCodecInfo[] codecs = ImageCodecInfo.GetImageEncoders();
        return codecs.First(codec => codec.FormatID == imageFormat.Guid).MimeType;
    }
}
public ActionResult Index()
    {
  return new ImageResult { Image = image, ImageFormat = ImageFormat.Jpeg };
    }
    <%=Html.Image<CapchaController>(c => c.Index(), 120, 30, "Current time")%>

Can an ASP.NET MVC controller return an Image?

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