Multi threading in WPF using C# (with background worker)

Question

I have written code to save an image which is generated by the application. The size of the image is around 32-35 MB. While saving the image to a BMB file, it is taking a long time, around 3-5 secs. For this purpose, I have used a background worker but when running the background worker, it shows an error like..."can't access the object as it is created on different thread".

Following is the code:

 private void btnSaveDesign_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        Microsoft.Win32.SaveFileDialog sfd = new Microsoft.Win32.SaveFileDialog();
        sfd.Title = "Save design as...";
        sfd.Filter = "BMP|*.bmp";
        if (sfd.ShowDialog() == true)
        {
            ww = new winWait();
            ww.Show();
            System.ComponentModel.BackgroundWorker bw = new System.ComponentModel.BackgroundWorker();
            bw.DoWork += new System.ComponentModel.DoWorkEventHandler(bw_DoWork);
            bw.RunWorkerCompleted += new System.ComponentModel.RunWorkerCompletedEventHandler(bw_RunWorkerCompleted);
            fName = sfd.FileName;
            cache = new CachedBitmap((BitmapSource)imgOut.Source, BitmapCreateOptions.None, BitmapCacheOption.OnLoad);

            bw.RunWorkerAsync();


        }  
    }

    void bw_RunWorkerCompleted(object sender, System.ComponentModel.RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e)
    {
        ww.Close();
    }

    void bw_DoWork(object sender, System.ComponentModel.DoWorkEventArgs e)
    {
        BmpBitmapEncoder encoder = new BmpBitmapEncoder();
        encoder.Frames.Add(BitmapFrame.Create(cache)); //here... it says cant access...
        using (FileStream file = File.OpenWrite(fName))
        {
            encoder.Save(file);
        }
    }

I have declared "cache" as a global object. (A similar trick worked when I was programming in Windows Forms with VB.NET.)

ww is the wait window that I want to be displayed while the precess is being executed.

How to do this? Is there any other simple method for multi threading in WPF?

Answer 1

When WPF objects are created they are assigned to a Dispatcher object. This disallows any threads other than the creating thread to access the object. This can be circumvented by freezing the object by calling the freeze method. You would need to call Freeze on your bitmapsource object. Once you have frozen your object it becomes uneditable