Image UriSource and Data Binding

I'm trying to bind a list of custom objects to a WPF Image like this:

<Image>
    <Image.Source>
        <BitmapImage UriSource="{Binding Path=ImagePath}" />
    </Image.Source>
</Image>

But it doesn't work. This is the error I'm getting:

"Property 'UriSource' or property 'StreamSource' must be set."

What am I missing?

WPF has built-in converters for certain types. If you bind the Image's Source property to a string or Uri value, under the hood WPF will use an ImageSourceConverter to convert the value to an ImageSource.

So

<Image Source="{Binding ImageSource}"/>

would work if the ImageSource property was a string representation of a valid URI to an image.

You can of course roll your own Binding converter:

public class ImageConverter : IValueConverter
{
    public object Convert(
        object value, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
    {
        return new BitmapImage(new Uri(value.ToString()));
    }

    public object ConvertBack(
        object value, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
    {
        throw new NotSupportedException();
    }
}

and use it like this:

<Image Source="{Binding ImageSource, Converter={StaticResource ImageConverter}}"/>

This article by Atul Gupta has sample code that covers several scenarios:

1. Regular resource image binding to Source property in XAML
2. Binding resource image, but from code behind
3. Binding resource image in code behind by using Application.GetResourceStream
4. Loading image from file path via memory stream (same is applicable when loading blog image data from database)
5. Loading image from file path, but by using binding to a file path Property
6. Binding image data to a user control which internally has image control via dependency property
7. Same as point 5, but also ensuring that the file doesn't get's locked on hard-disk

You can also simply set the Source attribute rather than using the child elements. To do this your class needs to return the image as a Bitmap Image. Here is an example of one way I've done it

<Image Width="90" Height="90" 
       Source="{Binding Path=ImageSource}"
       Margin="0,0,0,5" />

And the class property is simply this

public object ImageSource {
    get {
        BitmapImage image = new BitmapImage();

        try {
            image.BeginInit();
            image.CacheOption = BitmapCacheOption.OnLoad;
            image.CreateOptions = BitmapCreateOptions.IgnoreImageCache;
            image.UriSource = new Uri( FullPath, UriKind.Absolute );
            image.EndInit();
        }
        catch{
            return DependencyProperty.UnsetValue;
        }

        return image;
    }
}

I suppose it may be a little more work than the value converter, but it is another option.

You need to have an implementation of IValueConverter interface that converts the uri into an image. Your Convert implementation of IValueConverter will look something like this:

BitmapImage image = new BitmapImage();
image.BeginInit();
image.UriSource = new Uri(value as string);
image.EndInit();

return image;

Then you will need to use the converter in your binding:

<Image>
    <Image.Source>
        <BitmapImage UriSource="{Binding Path=ImagePath, Converter=...}" />
    </Image.Source>
</Image>