How to Read from System.Drawing Objects

by Chaknith Bin

System.Drawing.Bitmap is a class in the .NET Framework used for working with bitmap images. It provides methods and properties to create, manipulate, and display bitmap images.

System.Drawing.Image is a base class for all GDI+ image objects in the .NET Framework. It is the parent class for various image types, including System.Drawing.Bitmap.

IronSoftware.Drawing.AnyBitmap is a bitmap class in IronDrawing, an open-source library originally developed by Iron Software. It helps C# software engineers replace System.Drawing.Common in .NET projects on Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms.


C# NuGet Library for OCR

Install with NuGet

Install-Package IronOcr
or
Java PDF JAR

Download DLL

Download DLL

Manually install into your project

C# NuGet Library for OCR

Install with NuGet

Install-Package IronOcr
or
Java PDF JAR

Download DLL

Download DLL

Manually install into your project

Start using IronPDF in your project today with a free trial.

First Step:
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Check out IronOCR on Nuget for quick installation and deployment. With over 8 million downloads, it's transforming OCR with C#.

C# NuGet Library for OCR nuget.org/packages/IronOcr/
Install-Package IronOcr

Consider installing the IronOCR DLL directly. Download and manually install it for your project or GAC form: IronOcr.zip

Dll Img related to How to Read from System.Drawing Objects

Manually install into your project

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Read System.Drawing.Bitmap Example

First, instantiate the IronTesseract class to perform OCR. Create a System.Drawing.Bitmap from one of the various methods. In the code example, I've decided to use a file path.

Next, use the 'using' statement to create the OcrImageInput object, passing the image from the System.Drawing.Bitmap object to it. Finally, use the Read method to perform OCR.

:path=/static-assets/ocr/content-code-examples/how-to/input-system-drawing-read-bitmap.cs
using IronOcr;
using System.Drawing;

// Instantiate IronTesseract
IronTesseract ocrTesseract = new IronTesseract();

// Read image file to Bitmap
Bitmap bitmap = new Bitmap("Potter.tiff");

// Import System.Drawing.Bitmap
using var imageInput = new OcrImageInput(bitmap);
// Perform OCR
OcrResult ocrResult = ocrTesseract.Read(imageInput);
Imports IronOcr
Imports System.Drawing

' Instantiate IronTesseract
Private ocrTesseract As New IronTesseract()

' Read image file to Bitmap
Private bitmap As New Bitmap("Potter.tiff")

' Import System.Drawing.Bitmap
Private imageInput = New OcrImageInput(bitmap)
' Perform OCR
Private ocrResult As OcrResult = ocrTesseract.Read(imageInput)
VB   C#

Read System.Drawing.Image Example

Reading from a System.Drawing.Image is as simple as creating the OcrImageInput object with the Image and then performing the standard OCR process using the Read method.

:path=/static-assets/ocr/content-code-examples/how-to/input-system-drawing-read-image.cs
using IronOcr;
using Image = System.Drawing.Image;

// Instantiate IronTesseract
IronTesseract ocrTesseract = new IronTesseract();

// Open image file as Image
Image image = Image.FromFile("Potter.tiff");

// Import System.Drawing.Image
using var imageInput = new OcrImageInput(image);
// Perform OCR
OcrResult ocrResult = ocrTesseract.Read(imageInput);
Imports IronOcr
Imports Image = System.Drawing.Image

' Instantiate IronTesseract
Private ocrTesseract As New IronTesseract()

' Open image file as Image
Private image As Image = Image.FromFile("Potter.tiff")

' Import System.Drawing.Image
Private imageInput = New OcrImageInput(image)
' Perform OCR
Private ocrResult As OcrResult = ocrTesseract.Read(imageInput)
VB   C#

Read IronSoftware.Drawing.AnyBitmap Example

Similarly, after creating or obtaining an AnyBitmap object, you can construct the OcrImageInput class. The constructor will take care of all the necessary steps to import the data. The code example below demonstrates this.

:path=/static-assets/ocr/content-code-examples/how-to/input-system-drawing-read-anybitmap.cs
using IronOcr;
using IronSoftware.Drawing;

// Instantiate IronTesseract
IronTesseract ocrTesseract = new IronTesseract();

// Open image file as AnyBitmap
AnyBitmap anyBitmap = AnyBitmap.FromFile("Potter.tiff");

// Import IronSoftware.Drawing.AnyBitmap
using var imageInput = new OcrImageInput(anyBitmap);
// Perform OCR
OcrResult ocrResult = ocrTesseract.Read(imageInput);
Imports IronOcr
Imports IronSoftware.Drawing

' Instantiate IronTesseract
Private ocrTesseract As New IronTesseract()

' Open image file as AnyBitmap
Private anyBitmap As AnyBitmap = AnyBitmap.FromFile("Potter.tiff")

' Import IronSoftware.Drawing.AnyBitmap
Private imageInput = New OcrImageInput(anyBitmap)
' Perform OCR
Private ocrResult As OcrResult = ocrTesseract.Read(imageInput)
VB   C#

Specify Scan Region

In the construction of the OcrImageInput class, you can specify the area to scan. This allows you to define the specific region of the image document for OCR. Depending on the image document, specifying the scanning region can significantly enhance performance. In the provided code example, I specify that only the chapter number and title should be extracted.

:path=/static-assets/ocr/content-code-examples/how-to/input-images-read-specific-region.cs
using IronOcr;
using IronSoftware.Drawing;
using System;

// Instantiate IronTesseract
IronTesseract ocrTesseract = new IronTesseract();

// Specify crop region
Rectangle scanRegion = new Rectangle(800, 200, 900, 400);

// Add image
using var imageInput = new OcrImageInput("Potter.tiff", ContentArea: scanRegion);
// Perform OCR
OcrResult ocrResult = ocrTesseract.Read(imageInput);

// Output the result to console
Console.WriteLine(ocrResult.Text);
Imports IronOcr
Imports IronSoftware.Drawing
Imports System

' Instantiate IronTesseract
Private ocrTesseract As New IronTesseract()

' Specify crop region
Private scanRegion As New Rectangle(800, 200, 900, 400)

' Add image
Private imageInput = New OcrImageInput("Potter.tiff", ContentArea:= scanRegion)
' Perform OCR
Private ocrResult As OcrResult = ocrTesseract.Read(imageInput)

' Output the result to console
Console.WriteLine(ocrResult.Text)
VB   C#

OCR Result

Read specific region
Chaknith related to OCR Result

Chaknith Bin

Software Engineer

Chaknith is the Sherlock Holmes of developers. It first occurred to him he might have a future in software engineering, when he was doing code challenges for fun. His focus is on IronXL and IronBarcode, but he takes pride in helping customers with every product. Chaknith leverages his knowledge from talking directly with customers, to help further improve the products themselves. His anecdotal feedback goes beyond Jira tickets and supports product development, documentation and marketing, to improve customer’s overall experience.When he isn’t in the office, he can be found learning about machine learning, coding and hiking.